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Oral Answers to Questions
(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Sir Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD)
1. What resources her Department is making available at a local level to help tackle the harmful effects on communities of excessive drinking.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
The Government are providing direct support to 20 areas in England and Wales, including Greater Manchester, to tackle the harmful effects of excessive drinking, particularly alcohol-fuelled crime and disorder. We have also overhauled the Licensing Act 2003, giving local areas the tools and powers they need to deal with problem premises, and to secure a financial contribution towards policing the night-time economy.
Sir Andrew Stunell
I thank the Home Secretary for that answer, and particularly for the work that will be done in Greater Manchester. May I draw her attention to the plea of the director of public health for Stockport, who is concerned that the action of the alcohol industry is, to some extent, holding licensing authorities to ransom? Will she include that in her consideration of this important matter?
Mrs May
My right hon. Friend makes an important point, and we want to ensure that licensing authorities can use the tools and powers that the Government have given them. We gave them those tools and powers for a very good reason and because of our concern on two counts relating to alcohol abuse and the problems that arise from it—the cost to the police and society generally of crime and disorder related to alcohol, and also the health costs that arise.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
19. A report by The Lancet estimated that there were more than 200,000 alcohol-related crimes in the north-east in just a year, and that a minimum unit price would save 860 lives a year and cut hospital admissions by 30,000. Is it time that the Secretary of State totally disregarded the drinks industry lobby and introduced a minimum unit price to help make people healthier and safer at home?
Mrs May
We are going to introduce a ban on the sale of alcohol below the cost of duty plus VAT. That was a coalition agreement commitment, which will be introduced this April. We are also working with the industry and challenging it to ensure that it raises its game in dealing with problems related to excessive binge drinking and alcohol use, and we will watch what happens. Obviously Scotland is moving on the minimum unit price. There are legal issues and it will be interesting to see what evidence arises from that.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
Following the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), some of us believe that the primary problem with alcohol is a health problem rather than one of disorder and crime. Is the Home Secretary working closely with the Department of Health to ensure that we deal with alcohol seriously?
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
2. What steps she is taking to bring about a reduction in gross and net immigration to the UK.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
Since 2010 we have reformed all routes to the UK, tightening areas where abuse was rife. In particular, around 700 colleges can no longer bring students into the UK, but at the same time, sponsored visa applications for university students increased by 7% in the past year. In the areas where we can exert control, our reforms are working and have cut non-EU migration to its lowest level since 1998.
Mr Robertson
I thank the Home Secretary for that answer. Most statistics are quoted as net migration figures, although most people are concerned about the number of people coming to this country. Is it important to assess gross immigration figures when talking about these issues?
Mrs May
Obviously it is important to consider all migration figures, and uncontrolled gross immigration does put pressure on our public services and infrastructure. As the immigration Minister pointed out, the people who suffer most from the impact of uncontrolled immigration are those at the lower end of the income scale. Indeed, the hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas) said that the previous Labour Government used migration
“to introduce a covert 21st-century incomes policy.”
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
Last Thursday the immigration Minister scolded the metropolitan elite, which included members of the Cabinet, for employing people who were born outside this country. Some 4.4 million people who were born outside this country are contributing to our economy, and what the immigration Minister said came dangerously close to endorsing the discredited slogan of “British jobs for British workers.” When the Minister speaks in Harrow next Wednesday, will the Home Secretary ask him to return to his normal sensible demeanour, and let us have a constructive debate on immigration, rather than relying on stereotypes and clichés?
Mrs May
A constructive debate on immigration was exactly what my hon. Friend was contributing to, and I do not accept the right hon. Gentleman’s description of his speech. As I said in answer to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson), the immigration Minister was pointing out that uncontrolled immigration has greatest impact on those at the lower end of the income scale. I would have thought that as a Labour Member of Parliament, the right hon. Gentleman should care about that.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
23. Given that freedom of movement within the EU is the elephant in the room of the immigration issue, what plans do the Government have to reform that part of the EU strategy? It might have been suitable for the founding fathers, but given that there are now 28 member states with disparate economic cycles, it is past its sell-by date. Otherwise, we should stop talking about targets.
Mrs May
My hon. Friend makes an important point about free movement. I have been party to discussions and have raised the issue, particularly on the question of the abuse of free movement, within the EU. Many other member states are concerned. We are taking action with them to cut out the problems of the abuse of free movement.
My hon. Friend also mentioned the disparity of incomes among accession countries. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, in an article he wrote some weeks ago, suggested that a future approach might be not allowing full free movement rights until accession countries have reached a certain income level compared with the rest of the EU.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
When will we see an end to the persecution of Scottish fishing boats and their good foreign crews by the UK Border Agency? Boats from my constituency have been tied up and money is being lost because of the stupid obsession with immigrant numbers. The message should be that immigrants are good and we need them. Will the Home Secretary help Scottish fishing boats to work rather than cause them to waste their time and to be tied up?
Mrs May
My understanding is that there is a limit on the number of days that fishing boats can go out to fish, and that that is absolutely nothing to do with UK Visas and Immigration—if I might remind him, the UK Border Agency was abolished close to a year ago. I know that good work is being done—I saw this in Aberdeen recently—by UK Border Force, UK immigration enforcement, the National Crime Agency, Police Scotland and others to ensure that we get rid of the abuse that takes place in the fishing industry, particularly on issues such as trafficking.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
25. May I encourage the Home Secretary’s review of free movement within Europe, which is incredibly important? We would all like to hear more from her on how we take it forward
Mrs May
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s encouragement. As I have said, in the past nearly four years, I have seen growing concern on free movement among European Union member states. The UK has raised and pursued the matter. We are now working with other member states, particularly on the abuse of free movement, but we need to look ahead to future accession treaties, and the terms in which free movement is included in them.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
The Prime Minister has said that the Government would get net migration down to the tens of thousands by 2015, “no ifs, no buts”, and yet this month, the figure has risen to more than 212,000. The question is simple. Will the Government meet their net migration target—yes or no?
Mrs May
We are continuing to deal with net migration. [Interruption.] I fully accept that the most recent figures, which show an increase in migration from the EU, have made the task more difficult, but it ill behoves Labour Members to talk in those terms when they had an immigration policy that meant there was uncontrolled immigration throughout their period in office.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
A successful Wiltshire businesswoman who has created jobs for dozens of local people and paid her fair share of taxes faces her family being wrenched apart on account of her mother being denied leave to remain. How can we ensure that wealth creators—people who create jobs for our constituents —are not made to feel unwelcome here by changes to the family migration route?
Mrs May
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will want to raise individual cases with my hon. Friend the Minister for Security and Immigration. In overall terms, we have changed all routes of entry into the United Kingdom, which has had an impact on non-EU migration, which is at its lowest since 1998. The hon. Gentleman talks about wealth creators, and it is important that we differentiate in the system. We are cutting out abuse and ensuring that the brightest and the best can come to the UK.
Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)
3. What additional funding she has made available to the security agencies to cover costs associated with the ending of TPIMs.
Gemma Doyle (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab/Co-op)
11. What additional funding she has made available to the security agencies to cover costs associated with the ending of TPIMs.
The Minister for Security and Immigration (James Brokenshire)
Additional funding of tens of millions of pounds has been made available to the police and the Security Service each year for surveillance, technical capabilities and other measures to mitigate the overall risk as part of the TPIMs package. That has significantly enhanced the police and Security Service’s counter-terrorism capabilities.
Cathy Jamieson
Will additional funding continue to be made available to the police and the security services specifically to manage those suspects who otherwise would have been on TPIMs?
James Brokenshire
I am grateful to the hon. Lady, because her question allows me to confirm that there is no intention of reducing the additional funds that have been made available. We have also increased spending on the security and intelligence agencies, and protected counter-terrorism policing budgets to ensure that capabilities are maintained. That includes resources for surveillance and the management of TPIMs subjects.
Gemma Doyle
There are reports that around 400 Brits have travelled to Syria to fight in the terrible conflict there, and that around 250 of them have returned to the UK. There is therefore a pressing and urgent need to set out the measures which will be used to manage the threats that individuals may pose to the UK after TPIMs expire. Why is there a delay in providing the details of those measures?
James Brokenshire
There is no delay. The UK has some of the most robust and effective legislation in the world to deal with terrorist suspects and we will not hesitate to use every power at our disposal to protect the security of this country. The hon. Lady makes a fair point in relation to travel to Syria. We are very clear that people should not travel to Syria, and our counter-terrorism legislation is there to uphold the law. We are using the royal prerogative to remove passports from British nationals who it is believed wish to travel abroad to take part in activities such as terrorist training or other fighting.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that many of the problems we have with counter-terrorism and TPIMs would be made vastly easier if we had reform of European human rights so that we can ensure that the Supreme Court is supreme once again?
James Brokenshire
My hon. Friend has consistently made this point about human rights, and he is obviously well aware of a number of the measures that we have been looking at. Clearly, we have taken steps to ensure, for example, that we are better able to deport individuals and that our focus remains on deportation with assurance to ensure that those who would cause us harm and can be removed are removed from this country.
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that TPIMs are but a part of the array of powers available to the police and surveillance services to protect us from harm, and that they are far more able to withstand the sort of legal challenges that caused huge problems under the previous control order regime?
James Brokenshire
My hon. Friend makes an important point. What the Opposition do not say when they raise this issue is that control orders were struck down on a number of occasions for a range of reasons. I am clear that prosecution is always the best route to deal with terrorists, and we should recognise the success of our agencies in securing the conviction of 40 individuals for terrorism-related offences in the past year.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
4. What steps she is taking to increase the number of people who are investigated and charged for carrying out female genital mutilation.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
Government Ministers have signed a declaration which reaffirms our commitment to protecting current and future generations of girls from this abuse. We are working closely with the Director of Public Prosecutions to increase investigations for FGM and are considering suggestions for strengthening the criminal law. The Government are determined to do all we can to bring perpetrators to justice.
Karl Turner
I congratulate the Government on the work that they have done recently to deal with this shocking criminal offence, but will the Home Secretary commit to a national campaign to raise awareness of FGM and the fact that it is a serious criminal offence, similar to campaigns such as that on domestic violence?
Mrs May
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point in two ways for those who are potentially at risk of being victims of female genital mutilation. First, it is important that they understand their situation. Secondly, it is important that those who are aiming to undertake or arrange for others to undergo FGM know what the law is and where they stand in relation to it. The Government have indeed produced a campaign. We have launched a new communications campaign in relation to this issue. I also refer the hon. Gentleman to the “Statement opposing female genital mutilation”, which is a pocket-sized leaflet that sets out the law. About 41,000 statements have already been distributed across the UK in 11 languages.
Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)
FGM by its nature is a secretive crime, often perpetrated by close relatives of the victims, too many of whom are very young and too frightened to seek help. What is the Home Secretary doing to ensure that the police and the Crown Prosecution Service have the training and expertise necessary to take a proactive approach to identifying and protecting these very young victims, rather than simply hoping that they will come forward of their own volition?
Mrs May
My hon. Friend also makes important points about this issue. We are working with the victims that she mentions and, in particular, we are doing some work with the Director of Public Prosecutions. Everybody in the House is frustrated that there has not been a prosecution yet. We want to see prosecutions because that can make it clear to people what they are doing and what is at risk when they undertake this crime.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
17. The Education Secretary has agreed to write to all schools in England about FGM, following intense pressure from this side of the House and the brave campaign by Fahma Mohamed. Given that, what further discussions has the Home Secretary had with her colleagues in government in order to ensure that health staff, social workers and those working for other Departments and agencies report to the police any instances of FGM they have identified?
Mrs May
Ensuring that incidents are reported is important, and on 6 February the Department of Health announced that for the first time ever, from April, all NHS acute hospitals must provide information on patients who have undergone female genital mutilation. That will provide key information about the incidence and prevalence of FGM and will support social services and the police in their work by ensuring that they can target those areas where it is taking place.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
The House is united in wanting to see people prosecuted for this appalling crime. Even more, we want to see it stamped out altogether. What is being done to ensure that those young women who are threatened—and their family members—have a confidential way to report the possibility that it will happen to them?
Mrs May
We are taking a genuine cross-Government approach to the issue. It is being co-ordinated by the Minister for Crime Prevention, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), but we are bringing in the Department for Education, the Department of Health and the Department for International Development, which is putting in significant funds to try to deal with the problem at source overseas, both in those communities where the culture is strong—feeding back into diaspora communities in the UK—and where there are individuals performing this act on young girls, to ensure that we can eradicate it.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
One of the greatest challenges in tackling this issue—in terms of prosecutions and protecting the young women and, often, babies who are affected—is the level of awareness among social workers, police and other agencies. That challenge has been identified in Wales, and I suspect it is the same in England. What is the Home Secretary doing in Whitehall and on a cross-border basis with colleagues in Wales to ensure that we have a uniform approach to tackling the issue?
Mrs May
I am happy to say to the hon. Gentleman that on issues of this sort—and on the violence against women and girls agenda generally—we work with the Welsh Government and others. We are always willing to look at experience and practice, as well as at what others have found useful in dealing with this appalling crime.
Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)
May I warmly welcome the Government’s declaration on female genital mutilation? Does my right hon. Friend agree that political or cultural sensitivities should never get in the way of tackling what is an awful abuse and crime?
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
5. How many sponsor notifications of potentially bogus higher education students there have been since 2010; and how many have been actioned to date.
The Minister for Security and Immigration (James Brokenshire)
UK Visas and Immigration received 315,598 notifications between 2010 and 2013 from all Tier 4 sponsors, of which 299,586 were actioned in the same period. All notifications receive an initial consideration within 28 days of receipt.
Steve McCabe
May I wish the Minister well in his new post? The issue of bogus students figured strongly in his recent Demos speech, even if it did not get quite the same prominence in the press. Of the backlog of 153,000 notifications that the chief inspector has identified, how many have now been attended to? When I next ask him this question, will that backlog figure have gone up or come down?
James Brokenshire
As I said, all notifications received from sponsors receive an initial consideration within 28 days of receipt. Notifications can be for a number of different reasons, whether that is failure to enrol or whether there is something serious that may mean students, or their dependants, have their leave curtailed. As the hon. Gentleman knows, I am looking closely at sponsorship and whether the thresholds for sponsors on the failure rates for students that they put forward, are appropriate. I assure him that I am looking very closely at this issue.
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
My hon. Friend will be aware that net movements of students are the largest non-EU contributor to net inflow. Will he look beyond bogus students and ask whether, at a time when we have very high levels of graduate unemployment, it is right that there is an automatic right to remain for someone who graduates here and gets a job?
James Brokenshire
Our focus is on attracting the brightest and the best. It is important to note that applications for visas from outside the EU to universities have gone up by 7%. My hon. Friend will know that requirements and rules are in place to restrict how students can stay on—university graduates can stay if they get a graduate job earning £20,300, and there are certain other requirements—but we keep them under review.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
6. What steps she is taking to prevent extremism.
The Minister for Security and Immigration (James Brokenshire)
Under the Government’s Prevent strategy, which aims to stop people becoming involved in and supporting terrorism, we work closely with local authorities, the police, and other agencies to confront and disrupt extremism. The Prime Minister’s extremism taskforce has identified further practical steps to strengthen our response to all forms of extremism, and these are being taken forward.
Henry Smith
What increased steps are being taken to meet the security threat from British-born foreign fighters coming back from Syria? How can local communities in this country, where they identify radicalisation, be better supported?
James Brokenshire
I thank my hon. Friend. I know the particular focus he attaches to this issue in relation to his constituency. Syria is the number one destination for jihadists anywhere in the world. Our priority, through the Prevent strategy, is to dissuade people from travelling there. Messages are given at a local level, and I note that in my hon. Friend’s Crawley constituency there has been a community briefing event to discuss Syria-related issues and that faith leaders are taking an active role. I welcome that community action.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Minister agree that if we are to tackle extremism at the roots we must do something about our schools, which even now have been neglecting the whole citizenship agenda? Is he as disturbed as I am by certain spokespeople on the radio and television denigrating democracy as a form of government? Is it not at school that we should be extolling the virtues of living in a free and open democratic system?
James Brokenshire
I thoroughly endorse what the hon. Gentleman says. Many Members from across the House go to schools to underline key points on democracy and the values that define our country, and that work continues in our schools. The Department for Education is a key partner in the work of Prevent and in examining steps to be taken forward by the Prime Minister’s extremism taskforce.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
22. My hon. Friend will know that there are websites and social media that seek to radicalise young Muslims in our community. What steps is the Home Office taking to try to interfere with, or completely stop, those websites and social media?
James Brokenshire
My hon. Friend makes an important point on the impact of online radicalisation. The counter terrorism internet referral unit is removing more illegal terrorist content than ever before—since 2010, it has removed more than 26,000 pieces of illegal terrorist material online—but there is more work to do. We continue to work with the industry to ensure that, where we can prevent extremist material from getting into people’s homes, that is precisely what we will do.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
Has the Minister seen the evidence which shows that counter-speech is one of the most effective ways of driving people away from information online? Will he put more effort into supporting it, so that we can divert people from extremism?
James Brokenshire
As the hon. Gentleman says, it is important to ensure that different perspectives and points of view are articulated online. I continue to have discussions with internet service companies about how we can best help them with the good work that many are doing in helping community organisations to provide that counter-narrative.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
7. What assessment she has made of the proportion of reported rapes which resulted in prosecution or conviction in the last two years.
The Minister for Crime Prevention (Norman Baker)
Rape is a devastating and under-reported crime. However, the coalition Government is committed to improving the response to rape at every point in the criminal justice system, which includes improving referrals from the police to the Crown Prosecution Service.
Mrs Moon
Whatever the rate of civilian success in prosecuting and investigating rape, it is higher than that in the Ministry of Defence system. Will the Minister agree to work with the MOD to improve joint police investigation and service prosecution of rape in the military justice system?
Norman Baker
We are, of course, aware of one particular instance, of which the hon. Lady is doubtless also aware. I know that the Ministry of Defence has apologised to the family concerned for the failures that the coroner identified in that case. I shall be happy to work with my colleagues in the Ministry of Defence to ensure that all the help that we can give them is available.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
Successful prosecutions and help for victims have increased significantly in recent years. That is great, but does the Minister agree that rape is one of those crimes which are often not reported, particularly in certain communities in the United Kingdom, because of perceived shame or reticence? Could we not do more to encourage victims to discard that shame and be prepared to come forward and report the crime to the police?
Norman Baker
I entirely agree. It is important for victims to come forward and to have confidence in the police. Indeed, I believe that that is the trend we are now seeing. Although, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales, there has been a decrease in the number of sexual assaults, there has been a significant increase in the number of rapes reported to the police. That suggests that more people are confident about coming forward, which I welcome.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
Will the Minister admit that, while on his watch the number of reported rapes is increasing, the number of files passed to the Crown Prosecution Service has fallen by a third, and in the Met the number of referrals is down by 43%? When will he accept responsibility for that, and admit that the Government’s decisions to remove suspected rapists from the DNA database and to cut the police force have let victims down and are allowing criminals to get away with it?
Norman Baker
I did expect a very authoritarian question from a Labour Member. I wonder what the Labour party’s supporters in Islington and Hampstead make of its approach to Home Office questions.
The serious issue is that the CPS is currently involved in discussions with the police about rape referral levels in a number of forces. The Ministry of Justice and others are implementing the six-point plan to which the Attorney-General referred last year. The hon. Lady may also be aware that, along with the Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims, I have written to all chief constables and police and crime commissioners urging them to take rape even more seriously than they do already.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
8. What assessment she has made of the effect of reductions in funding to local authorities on police forces.
The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)
Funding for local authorities is a matter for the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 introduced two related, reciprocal duties for police and crime commissioners to co-operate with partners. PCCs are already working with local leaders to achieve effective outcomes for their areas, and we encourage them to continue to do so. In Hampshire. for example, fire and police authorities and the county council are joining up corporate services, and expect to save up to £4 million a year.
Mr Cunningham
Street wardens, neighbourhood wardens and police community support officers are key to neighbourhood policing, but huge cuts in local authority budgets are forcing councils such as Coventry city council, West Midlands county council and others throughout the country to cut their funding for what local communities want: wardens and PCSOs on their streets. Does the Home Secretary not recognise the damage being done to neighbourhood policing, and the increasing burden that she is placing on our police service?
Damian Green
I disagree with the premise of that question, and so do the hon. Gentleman’s constituents and others across the west midlands. Some 87% of the public say that they are satisfied with the West Midlands police—a greater percentage than in the country as a whole—and the west midlands has amongst the highest levels of victim satisfaction in the country. The reason for that is probably that the most recent statistics show that, in the year to September 2013, recorded crime in the west midlands was down 1%.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
21. Does the Minister agree that central to cutting crime is how we deploy our police forces? This is not about targets or bureaucracy; it is about ensuring that the police are deployed in the right way to focus on cutting neighbourhood crime.
Damian Green
My hon. Friend is right. Indeed, the inspectorate of constabulary has found that a higher proportion of police officers are visible on the front line, where people want to see them. That is why our streets are safer now than they have been for decades.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
Police community support officers, local men and women on the beat, are much loved and much respected in communities throughout the country and the bedrock of neighbourhood policing. With councils now hit hard by the biggest cuts in local government history, 3,366 PCSOs have gone since the general election. Does the Minister recognise local communities’ mounting concern about the loss of their PCSOs? Will he join me in welcoming the commitment to put 500 PCSOs back on the beat, which is now being honoured by Labour Wales?
Damian Green
I agree with the hon. Gentleman to the extent that I absolutely value the work of PCSOs, but he is deluding himself if he thinks that the streets are becoming less safe and that neighbourhood policing is in retreat. Neighbourhood policing is at the heart of the policing model operated by this country’s forces. Over the past few years, they have collaborated better with local government and the NHS so that every pound they spend is more visible on the streets and is being shown in the consistent reduction in crime.
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
The reality is that crime is falling. Does the Minister agree that it is precisely at a time of pressure on budgets that the police should look at innovative ways of working with local authorities, the voluntary sector and other partners to deliver services that keep people safe in their communities?
Damian Green
My hon. Friend is right. He represents part of the west midlands, as does the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) who asked the original question. My hon. Friend will know that the police innovation fund had a successful bid from the west midlands. That will mean that a new public sector intelligence hub will be created, bringing together local councils, the NHS, other services and the police. That will enable them to share information in a way that will make them much more effective at fighting child sexual exploitation. It is that kind of work that reduces crime.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
9. What comparative assessment she has made of trends in the levels of EU and non-EU migration; and if she will make a statement.
The Minister for Security and Immigration (James Brokenshire)
Our reforms have cut non-EU migration to its lowest level since 1998 and there are now 82,000 fewer non-EU nationals arriving annually than when this Government came to power. Net migration of EU nationals and their family members, who are not subject to formal immigration controls, has doubled over the last year. Across Government, we are working hard to address the factors that draw people to Britain for the wrong reasons.
Stephen Metcalfe
Does my hon. Friend agree with the comments of the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, that freedom of movement should not mean freedom to claim and that the only way to tackle this is through the Prime Minister’s plan to reform the EU?
James Brokenshire
I agree with what my hon. Friend has said. Freedom of movement is not and cannot be a freedom to claim benefits. The Government have introduced a series of domestic measures to restrict access to benefits and we are committed to working with our partners to reform the rules on access to benefits, which were designed for a different era and are no longer fit for purpose.
Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)
Does the Home Secretary agree with the Institute of Directors that the Immigration Minister’s first major speech in his new job was
“feeble, pathetic and divisive and more about political positioning than what is good for the country”?
Did she see it in advance?
James Brokenshire
I did not know that I had been promoted but I will obviously answer the hon. Gentleman’s question. There is nothing feeble and weak about an immigration policy that continues to attract the brightest and the best to this country while resolutely focusing on reducing net migration to sustainable levels. That is why our policies are having an effect, reducing net migration from outside the EU by 82,000. What was feeble was the last Government’s failures that let immigration get out of control. It is their mess that this Government continue to sort out and with our reforms cutting non-EU migration to its lowest levels since 1998, we are having an effect.
John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)
10. What estimate she has made of the number of students from India who have received visas to undertake studies at universities in Scotland in the latest period for which figures are available.
The Minister for Security and Immigration (James Brokenshire)
We do not have figures for the numbers of visas issued to Indian nationals for study at Scottish universities, but the latest higher education statistics show that India remains within the top five most common non-EU nationalities at universities in Scotland. We have cut abuse of student visas, but continue to attract the brightest and best students from around the world.
John Robertson
The Higher Education Statistics Agency says that Indian student numbers on higher education courses are down by 25% since 2011 alone and in Scotland they are down by 32%. What does the Minister think is the reason for that and why is Scotland so much worse off than the rest of the UK?
James Brokenshire
We have seen falls in student numbers from India, but we have also seen that in the USA and Australia, so a similar picture has been seen. However, visa applications from sponsored UK universities increased by 7% in 2013 and he may want to look at the figures for sponsored visa applications relating to the university of Glasgow, which are up 24%; for Heriot-Watt university, which are up 13% and for the university of Strathclyde, which are up 16%. We continue to attract the brightest and best and that is what our policy is doing.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Will the Minister outline to the House how the highly trusted sponsor scheme will allow the assessment of the ability and intention of students to complete their courses in this country?
James Brokenshire
As my hon. Friend has highlighted, sponsors do have responsibilities, and I responded to a previous question on the notifications they provide in relation to their students. We do need to keep a clear focus on those responsibilities and it is my view that where the Home Office is receiving applications from those universities, the failure rate is high and that does need to be examined further.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
Of course the Minister knows the rises he pointed out in his answer to the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (John Robertson) are all down to the reciprocal arrangement with China. That figure is down 25% from Pakistan, and down 14% from Nigeria. This Government’s United Kingdom Independence party-based immigration policies are hurting our universities and our ability to attract students to Scotland. Why should our universities suffer because of the appalling race to the bottom between the Minister’s Government and UKIP?
James Brokenshire
It is important to welcome the fact that we have seen an increase from China of 6%. The figure is also up 3% from Malaysia and 15% from Hong Kong. That shows there is nothing intrinsic in our policies that is putting off high quality students. That is why we are focused on ensuring that we continue to attract the brightest and the best to the whole of the UK and Scotland, and there is nothing to suggest that our policies are having any negative impact on that.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
12. What assessment she has made of the change in the number of black and minority ethnic police officers in England and Wales since 2010.
The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)
From March 2010 to March 2013 the proportion of black and minority ethnic officers has increased from 4.6% to 5%. While the police work force is more representative in terms of gender and ethnicity than it has ever been, there is still much more to be done by forces.
Stella Creasy
One in three of my constituents is from a black and minority ethnic background but that is true of only one in 10 of our police. Does the Minister recognise that in communities like mine in east London that can lead to an undermining of confidence that our police are drawing from the widest talent pool possible in serving our capital city? If he does agree that that is a problem, will he back our plans to fast-track action to do something about it?
Damian Green
I agree completely with the hon. Lady that this issue needs addressing. I am happy to tell the House that it is being addressed. The Metropolitan police plan to recruit 5,000 new constables between now and 2015, and their aim is that 40% of them should be from a minority background, to reflect the population of London as a whole. This indeed is a serious issue, which the Metropolitan police are addressing.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
13. What assessment she has made of the potential effect of the Immigration Bill on red tape for businesses.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)
The Government have published a number of impact assessments in relation to the provisions in the Immigration Bill, setting out the costs and benefits of the proposals. These include an assessment of the impacts on businesses.
Meg Hillier
I welcome the Minister to the Dispatch Box. It is good to see another woman on the Conservative Front Bench—one who is speaking this time.
During the Immigration Bill Committee, the former Immigration Minister, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), promised that there would be a mechanism to enable constituents who were extending their leave to remain to have the right documents in order to prove that to landlords and others, as required under the Bill. Can the Minister give me any update on how long that will take to come into place? If not, perhaps she could write to me.
Karen Bradley
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I know that she worked very hard on the Immigration Bill Committee. We will look carefully at what she said and respond shortly.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on joining the Treasury Bench.
Christopher Pincher
Staffordshire for ever, indeed. The previous Labour Government were guilty of not imposing red tape on transition controls, which led to thousands of European migrants coming to this country. Does my hon. Friend agree with the former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), when he said that that was a spectacular mistake?
Karen Bradley
I thank my hon. Friend, a fellow Staffordshire MP, for his question. He is quite right. The Immigration Bill is a sensible measure that will help this country to protect against illegal immigration. It is a well-needed measure and something we should be bringing in sooner rather than later.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
14. What recent steps she has taken to reduce antisocial behaviour.
The Minister for Crime Prevention (Norman Baker)
We are introducing measures through the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill that put victims at the heart of the response to tackling and reducing antisocial behaviour. Front-line professionals will have faster, more effective powers better to protect the public, and people will have a voice in how agencies tackle their problems through the community trigger and the community remedy.
Bridget Phillipson
I am grateful to the Minister for that answer, but he knows that antisocial behaviour remains a major concern. Constituents stress to me that agencies need to work together more quickly, and especially more effectively, to tackle it. What more can the Minister do to make that happen?
Norman Baker
I recognise that the hon. Lady thinks this is a problem in her constituency and has done some work on it. I acknowledge that. The measures we are taking through the new range of powers will not only give more flexibility to agencies. The community remedy will encourage agencies to work together, as I mentioned a moment ago, and the fact that perpetrators will have to take responsibility for their actions—dealing with them that way, through the new powers—will help to drive down antisocial behaviour.
Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
18. Will the Minister join me in welcoming proposals from students at York university to establish a Street Angels-style initiative? The aim is to combat antisocial behaviour and to prevent alcohol and drug-related tragedies for those who find themselves in particularly vulnerable situations.
Norman Baker
I very much welcome that sort of local initiative and I congratulate those involved in the York university activity. That is why we have done away with the old top-down approach and given the agencies the freedom and flexibility that they need to make a difference locally.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
Since my statement last Thursday, hon. Members will have had the opportunity to read for themselves Mark Ellison’s report into the investigation of the murder of Stephen Lawrence, as well as that of Operation Herne into allegations of misconduct by the special demonstration squad. Both reports’ findings are deeply shocking. They will have an impact for the police, particularly the Metropolitan police, for years to come.
I have asked the chief inspector of constabulary to look at the anti-corruption capability of forces so that we can ensure that forces have all the capability that they need to pursue corruption. We must continue the programme of integrity and anti-corruption measures that I set out on Thursday.
Our reforms are changing the culture of the police through direct entry, a new code of ethics, greater transparency and professionalisation, and reform of the Independent Police Complaints Commission. I am also, as I said on Thursday, tabling amendments to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill to introduce a new offence of police corruption.
From this autumn, the police will for the first time have the opportunity to bring in talented and experienced leaders from other walks of life to senior ranks, opening up policing culture. I believe that that is one of the most important reforms in shaping the police of the future.
Finally, I am sure the whole House will want to join me in paying tribute to the family of Stephen Lawrence, who continue to live through experiences that the rest of us cannot imagine. They have done so with dignity and stoicism. They deserve truth and justice.
Alec Shelbrooke
I very much associate myself with my right hon. Friend’s comments. My constituents have raised with me the issue of scam sites dealing with passports and European health insurance cards, of which I, too, have been a victim. What pressure is she bringing to bear on search engines to stop that shoddy ripping off of hard-working people?
Mrs May
My hon. Friend raises an important issue. The Government are already taking action to tackle rogue websites which masquerade as legitimate Government services, exaggerating the nature of the services they provide or deliberately underplaying the services that people can get for free or at a lower cost from official sources. The Government Digital Service is leading a cross-government exercise with organisations such as the Advertising Standards Authority, the National Trading Standards Board, Which? and search engines to raise awareness of the issue and ensure that enforcement action is taken, where appropriate. Ministerial colleagues have also met Google to discuss the enforcement of its policies for advertising on its search results pages. Google will continue to support us by removing misleading adverts and by closing the accounts of repeat offenders.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire) on his promotion and his ability to generate headlines in his new job, and welcome the hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) to her post in the home affairs team.
I join the Home Secretary in paying tribute to the Lawrence family, who have had to endure further betrayal with the information from the shocking Ellison review last week. Twenty-one years after the death of Stephen Lawrence, reforms are needed so that those failures do not continue to cast a long shadow over the vital and valiant work that so many police officers do each day and, in particular, so that we can build confidence among the black and ethnic minority communities. Does the Home Secretary therefore agree that the Independent Police Complaints Commission should now be replaced with a new, stronger police watchdog? Will she tell me whether she agrees with the four proposals I made in my letter to her on reforming stop and search—on section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994; on section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984; on race discrimination; and on banning targets?
Mrs May
Of course it is important that we ensure that the IPCC is able to deal with the cases of complaints against police officers. I have been concerned for some time about the fact that the police have, in effect, been investigating serious and sensitive complaints against police officers themselves. That is why I am changing the arrangements for the IPCC, increasing its resources and ensuring that in future it will be taking on the serious and sensitive cases. It is also why we have provided a number of other new powers to the IPCC to ensure that it has the capability it needs. However, as I said on Thursday, I am of course continuing to look at this issue.
I assure the right hon. Lady that we do need to look at stop and search. I have consulted on it and the Government are now finalising the package we wish to put in place in response to that consultation.
Yvette Cooper
I thank the Home Secretary for her answer, but given the seriousness of this, I urge her to go further and faster, both on the IPCC, which is simply not strong enough, and on stop and search. She and I agree that its targeted use is really important, but too many searches are simply not targeted at all. We have not heard anything from her since her statement in July; the critical Equality and Human Rights Commission was four years ago; and we are told now that reform is being blocked by regressive attitudes in No. 10. It turns out that the Prime Minister said before the election that he wanted to
“free the police to do far more stopping and far more searching.”
Does the Home Secretary agree with the Prime Minister or is she losing the argument within the Government?
Mrs May
What we all want is to ensure that stop and search, a particularly valuable tool for the police, is properly used by the police. The recent report by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, which I requested, found that the stop and search powers were not being used properly in far too high a percentage of cases—about a quarter of the cases it looked into. Stop and search is important and a very valuable tool; when it is used properly and well targeted, it has the right impact. I am pleased to say that the Metropolitan police have already started to make some changes in their operation of stop and search, which is having some impact.
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)
T3. Trading standards officers and local police have seized more than 189,000 illegal cigarettes and more than 16 kg of illicit tobacco from shops in my constituency in the past 12 months. All of that is untaxed and much of it is counterfeit, but the existing penalties do little to stem the flow of this harmful trade. Does the Home Secretary share my view that trading standards officers should be given the power to shut down these shops where all other enforcement methods have failed?
The Minister for Crime Prevention (Norman Baker)
I agree that Trading Standards needs to take that issue seriously, as I believe it does. Of course, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, which is responsible for criminal investigation of fiscal offences, is well aware of the loss of money to the Treasury as a consequence of that activity. The good news is that the UK Border Force is successfully active on this front. The Crown Prosecution Service will decide whether to charge and prosecute in particular cases.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
T2. Two women a week die at the hands of their partners or former partners. In Oldham, between October 2012 and September 2013, more than 5,300 women were subject to abuse, a third of whom were abused in front of children. With 13% fewer domestic violence cases being prosecuted, what are the implications for justice for these women?
Mrs May
The hon. Lady raises an important point. Last year, the figures showed that 76 women lost their lives at the hands of a partner, ex-partner or lover. That is lower than in previous years, but even one such case is one too many, and we are all agreed on that across the House. My hon. Friend the Minister for Crime Prevention is doing work on such issues, looking at prosecutions and at ensuring that the right response is available so that women can indeed see justice when they have suffered at the hands of a partner or ex-partner.
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
T4. The all-party parliamentary group on mental health, which I chair, recently launched an inquiry into crisis care. Will the Home Secretary outline what the Government are doing to ensure that when vulnerable people with mental health problems come into contact with the police, they get an appropriate level of care?
The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his work on the all-party group, to which I gave evidence last week. On vulnerable people, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has commissioned Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary to undertake a specific inspection of the treatment of all vulnerable people in custody, because that is an extremely important area, which requires improvement in the performance of the health service and the police and across the criminal justice system, which we are determined to make happen.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
When a retired police officer says that senior officers briefed him to report a fight involving alcohol as just drunk and disorderly rather than as a public order offence, I am concerned. What steps is the Home Secretary taking to ensure that targets do not lead to the massaging of crime figures?
Norman Baker
I assure the hon. Gentleman that we take alcohol issues very seriously indeed, including the way in which they are recorded by the police. There is a great deal of alcohol harm in this country: £21 billion is the cost to the public purse from antisocial behaviour, damage to the health service and lost productivity. As Ministers, we all expect the police to record crime accurately.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
T5. One consequence of an unfettered free movement directive is that illegal gangmasters from the European Union operating in the fens are linked to antisocial behaviour and human trafficking. What action is the Minister taking to end that phenomenon?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and I know how hard he works locally on that issue. The Government are taking firm action to combat illegal gangmasters in his constituency and elsewhere. We have set up a cross-Government multi-agency taskforce to apply the full range of enforcement powers. We are doubling the penalties on employers for breaching the national minimum wage and for employing illegal migrant workers, and we will bring forward a modern slavery Bill next Session to deal with that heinous crime.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
Is the Home Secretary aware of the numbers of UK nationals who are subject to an overseas arrest warrant for serious offences such as murder and child sex crimes?
Mrs May
Of course I am aware that a number of UK nationals are subject to such warrants. Indeed I applaud the work that is done by the National Crime Agency, particularly in some of the areas that the hon. Gentleman has identified, in relation to working with other police forces across the world to ensure that whoever and wherever the perpetrators are, they are brought to justice.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
T6. Does the Secretary of State agree that alongside the police, the public and social services have a vital role to play in helping to identify the victims of domestic abuse and, importantly, ensuring that they are signposted to the right services that will help them?
Norman Baker
Yes, I wholly agree. If we are to end violence against women and girls, all front-line services have to play a crucial role. A multi-agency approach is vital, as indeed is a cross-departmental approach, and that is reflected in the updated action plan that we published at the weekend.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
Ministers will be aware of how upset and repelled the community is that the self-same police force that was supposed to be finding Doreen and Neville’s son’s killers was actually engaged in spying on them to undermine their campaign. Inquiries are all very well, and reforms are all very well, but can we be given an assurance that we will know who authorised the spying on Doreen and Neville Lawrence?
Mrs May
The hon. Lady raises a very important point. I think that everybody in this House and across the country was shocked at the findings of the Ellison review, particularly at somebody from the special demonstration squad effectively being, in the terms that Mark Ellison put it, a spy in the camp around the Lawrence family. Every effort will be made to ensure that the truth comes out about that. If the hon. Lady has read the Ellison report, she will know that the record-keeping of the special demonstration squad was, to put it mildly, sadly lacking. However, every effort will be made. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner has made it clear that they will want to ensure that they are providing every piece of evidence possible to the inquiries that are taking place.
Mr Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)
Does the Home Secretary accept that, with regard to the despicable crime of FGM, her announcement earlier about the involvement of hospitals in helping to bring people to justice will be widely welcomed? Does she also accept that, if it is not already being done, there is also surely a role for GPs in being able to report where they come across instances of this terrible crime?
Norman Baker
I entirely agree that it is very important that the NHS plays a particularly good role. The public health Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison), has been very active on this front and has made great steps forward. She is looking at how the whole NHS can help the cross-departmental effort to tackle this appalling crime.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
In my constituency, many fairly young couples are struggling with the new rules on being able to marry someone from outside this country. They feel that they are being made to pay the price of the Government’s failure to keep to its migration targets. Has the Home Secretary now decided how to respond to the various reports on this or on whether any changes are going to be made?
The Minister for Security and Immigration (James Brokenshire)
We welcome those who wish to make a life in the UK with their family, work hard and make a contribution, but family life must not be established here at the taxpayer’s expense, and family migrants must be able to integrate. That is precisely what our rules are about. We believe that this is fair to applicants and to the public. The hon. Lady may know that there is an ongoing court case. Therefore, while we absolutely maintain our position on this, applications are currently being put on hold pending the outcome of that case.
Mr Speaker
I want to hear a couple more of my colleagues, but extreme brevity is now required.
Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)
The Facewatch online crime reporting system makes it much quicker for businesses to report crime. Will my hon. Friend encourage more businesses and local authorities to follow the lead taken by the west midlands crime reduction team and introduce Facewatch elsewhere to reduce crime further?
Karen Bradley
I thank my hon. Friend, who is a doughty champion for businesses both large and small in her constituency. I am very interested by the Facewatch business, and I look forward to seeing it tomorrow in Farnborough at the security and policing exhibition, where I shall promote it and other UK businesses in selling these great services globally.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
The Welsh Government have put their money where their mouth is and are funding 500 additional police community support officers. Will the Minister for Crime Prevention, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), explain why his colleagues up and down the country are openly accusing Conservative councils of being hypocritical for not putting their money where their mouth is and supporting PCSOs?
Damian Green
I—[Interruption.] I am terribly sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman and Opposition Front Benchers by answering a question about policing, since I am the Policing Minister. He will know that across the country crime is coming down and a higher proportion of police officers are on the front line. The streets of Britain are safer today in England and in Wales than they ever have been since we started recording crime statistics.
Sir James Paice (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
Following the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson), does my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary accept that there are countless employers in the food and farming sector who do not use illegal gangmasters and who instead pay good pay and provide good accommodation for their workers, and that where there is job displacement it is because British workers are not prepared to do that work, rather than because employers are somehow taking on illegal migrants on the cheap?
Mrs May
My right hon. Friend will be aware of the seasonal agricultural workers scheme, which was a very particular scheme that ensured that people were brought across to do work in the agricultural sector. However, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs made clear in his speech to the Oxford Farming Conference recently, we need to look at ensuring that people here in the United Kingdom are able to take on the jobs that are available to them, and at the moment we have no intention of reintroducing the seasonal agricultural workers scheme.
North Corner Quay and Landing Stage, Devonport
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
It is with great delight that I take this opportunity of presenting Parliament with a petition by about 1,000 of my constituents within the Plymouth travel-to-work area who are concerned about the north corner quay and landing stage in Devonport.
The petition states:
The Petition of residents of Devonport and Plymouth, and others,
Declares that the Petitioners are concerned about the condition of the North Corner Quay and Landing Stage, Devonport.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government under his powers contained in Part IV, Clause 48 of the Plymouth City Council Act (1987) to encourage Plymouth City Council to restore and repair North Corner Quay and Landing Stage as contained in Part IV, Clause 26 of the said Act.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
[P001324]
South Stoke Plateau (Bath and North East Somerset)
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
Her Majesty’s Government have been fantastic in saving my constituency from development in the green belt, and the Communities and Local Government Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), has been particularly good in recently stopping these incursions, but my constituents in South Stoke are especially concerned about development that may take place there and I have 1,386 signatures to this petition. That number is easy to remember because, 1386 was the year of the treaty of Windsor.
The petition states:
The Humble Petition of the residents of the parish of South Stoke and its neighbouring parishes and wards of Bath and North East Somerset, here represented by South Stoke Parish Council and The South of Bath Alliance,
Sheweth that it is the intention of Bath and North East Somerset District Council's Amended Core Strategy to develop the land known as the Odd Down/ South Stoke Plateau with the building of 300 new homes.
Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your honourable House ask Her Majesty’s Government to recognise the importance of the openness of this land, which forms part of the Setting of the Bath World Heritage Site and of the Wansdyke Scheduled Ancient Monument, and to maintain the current Statutory protections of the Green Belt and Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty designations for all of the South Stoke Plateau and so maintain the site free of development in perpetuity.
And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c
[P001330]
European Council
(10 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on last week’s emergency European Council.
What has happened to Ukraine is completely indefensible. Its territorial integrity has been violated and the aspirations of its people to chart their own future are being frustrated.
This European Council sent a clear and united message to Russia that its actions are in flagrant breach of international law and will incur consequences. We agreed on a three-phase approach to stand up to this aggression and uphold international law: first, some immediate steps to respond to what Russia has done; secondly, urgent work on a set of measures that will follow if Russia refuses to enter dialogue with the Ukrainian Government; and thirdly, a set of further, far-reaching consequences should Russia take further steps to destabilise the situation in Ukraine.
Let me say a word on each of those steps. First, as a response to what Russia has already done, we agreed on some immediate steps. We have suspended preparations for the G8 in Sochi indefinitely. As I told the House last week, my view is that it would be completely wrong for a G8 summit to go ahead at all under current circumstances. We decided to stop work on a comprehensive new agreement on relations between Russia and the European Union, and we immediately suspended the talks that were under way on a more liberal visa regime in the Schengen area—the thing that Russian Ministers and business delegations have pushed for more than anything else.
Here in Britain, I have ordered an urgent review of all Government business with Russia. We have already announced that no Ministers or members of the royal family will visit the Sochi Paralympics. Many other planned ministerial-level contacts will be cancelled in current circumstances. All bilateral military co-operation is under review, with the presumption that we will suspend it, except for work carried out to fulfil international treaty obligations, such as European arms control inspections. I have ordered a review of licences for arms exports to Russia. It is hard to see how anything that could be used in Ukraine could be justified. As with other measures, it is best if possible to take these decisions in concert with our European allies.
There has been intense work to persuade Russia to come to the negotiating table with the Government of Ukraine and to discuss its stated concerns face to face. The idea of such a contact group, including other countries and organisations, was one I first proposed to the Polish Prime Minister back in January. The European Council agreed it was essential for such talks to start within the next few days and for them to deliver progress quickly. We also agreed that if Russia did not co-operate there would need to be further measures—the so-called second phase—which would need to start rapidly.
Therefore, at my instigation, the Council tasked the European Commission to begin work on additional measures which could be taken against Russia if these talks do not get going or do not start producing results. These will include asset freezes and travel bans. We are working closely with our American, European and other international partners to prepare a list of names, and these sanctions, plus the measures already agreed against Yanukovych and his circle, will be the focus of a meeting here in London tomorrow with key international partners.
There is an urgent need to de-escalate tension in Crimea. We are all clear that any referendum vote in Crimea this week will be illegal, illegitimate and will not be recognised by the international community. In addition, I have to say that any campaign would be completely impractical as well as illegal. There is no proper register or proper campaign, and the territory is covered with troops. It is completely impossible for a proper referendum campaign to be carried out. As I discussed with Chancellor Merkel last night in Hanover, Russia can choose the path of de-escalation by signalling it understands that the outcome cannot be acted on as legitimate. Chancellor Merkel and I were clear that any attempt by Russia to legitimise an illegal referendum would require us to respond by ratcheting up the pressure further.
Thirdly, and most significantly, we agreed that it was essential to stop Russia taking further unacceptable steps in Ukraine. The Council agreed that if further steps are taken by Russia to destabilise Ukraine, there will be additional and far-reaching consequences for the relationship between the Russian Federation on the one hand and the European Union and its member states on the other. The Council conclusions state that these consequences would
“include a broad range of economic areas.”
Britain played a leading role in helping to reach this agreement, including through a meeting I convened with fellow leaders from France, Germany, Italy and Poland on the morning of the Council. Such sanctions would have consequences for many EU member states, including Britain, but as I argued at the meeting, the costs of not standing up to aggression are far greater. Britain’s own security and prosperity would be at risk if we allow a situation where countries can just flout international rules without incurring consequences.
Finally, we decided to send a political message of support to the Ukrainian Government and people. The interim Ukrainian President spoke at the European Council with great power and force. The Ukrainian people want the freedom to be able to choose their own future and strengthen their ties with Europe, and they want a future free from the awful corruption that they have endured for far too long.
At the request of the Ukrainian Prime Minister, we therefore agreed to bring forward the signing of the political part of the EU’s association agreement with Ukraine, and we agreed to help Ukraine tackle corruption. The EU has now frozen the assets of 18 people linked to the former regime, and Britain has deployed a team to Kiev from our National Crime Agency to help the new Ukrainian Government go after ill-gotten funds and return them to the Ukrainian people.
It is now vital that Ukraine proceeds towards free and fair elections that enable all Ukrainians, including Russian speakers and minorities, to choose their leaders freely, so Britain is now providing substantial and immediate technical assistance to Ukraine to support elections and assist with reforms on public finance management, debt management and energy pricing. Ukraine also needs support to stabilise and repair its economy. The EU agreed unilaterally to lower trade tariffs, and to work with the International Monetary Fund on a package of financial assistance to the Ukrainian Government.
As I agreed with President Obama during our call this weekend, there is still an opportunity for Russia to resolve this situation diplomatically. It should engage in direct talks with the Ukrainians, return Russian troops to their bases in Crimea, withdraw its support for this illegal and unconstitutional referendum in Crimea, and work with the rest of the international community to support free and fair elections in Ukraine in May. No one should be interested in a tug of war. Ukraine should be able to choose its own future and act as a bridge between Russia and Europe.
Britain’s own future depends on a world where countries obey the rules. In Europe, we have spent the past 70 years working to keep the peace, and we know from history that turning a blind eye when nations are trampled over stores up greater problems for the longer term. We must stand up to aggression, uphold international law and support the Ukrainian Government and the Ukrainian people, who want the freedom to choose their own future. That is right for Ukraine, right for Europe, right for Britain. I commend this statement to the House.
Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)
I thank the Prime Minister for his statement, and I join him in expressing deep concern about the situation in Ukraine.
Since we discussed this issue in the House last Wednesday, we have seen the illegal referendum announced in Crimea, Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe observers prevented from crossing into the region by Russian forces for four days running and, yesterday, violence on the streets against anti-Russian demonstrators. We support the twin-track approach of encouraging dialogue and at the same time maximising pressure on the Russian Government, but nobody looking at the unfolding situation on the ground would conclude that this is yet having the desired effect. It is on that basis that we should examine the discussions taking place, the outcome of the EU summit and the steps that should be taken in the days ahead.
It is worth saying that getting agreement among the EU 28 is always difficult, particularly when a number of member states are vulnerable to Russian action on issues such as energy. However, as we agreed last week, this is a test of EU resolve and of its commitment to uphold the rule of law, democracy and human rights—values on which it prides itself as an institution.
Let me welcome the summit measures that were agreed. Those include the unity of the EU in condemning Russia’s actions and the decision to provide support and encouragement to the Ukrainian Government, including €11 billion of aid. The Prime Minister referred to the suspension of visa talks and a new agreement on EU-Russia relations. Those measures are welcome, although they had been announced on 3 March before the developments that I referred to at the start. Does he accept that the evidence from recent days suggests that those measures alone will be insufficient to get Russia to change course, and that further action will be required?
Turning to what more needs to be done, I welcome the European Council’s decision to look at further measures, although the agreed language is weaker than we would have wished. I welcome what the Prime Minister said about asset freezes and travel bans. Will he confirm that the time frame for their implementation will be days and not weeks, particularly given that the United States is committed to such action? On the EU-Russia summit, which is referred to in the Council conclusions, surely it makes sense at the very least, unless there is an immediate change of course by the Russian Government, to suspend preparations for it, as has been done for the G8 summit in Sochi.
Beyond that, I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement that we need to look actively at other measures. I urge him in the days ahead to build support for further measures among our European and other allies to prepare for the eventuality that they will be required.
Let me ask the Prime Minister about some specific matters. Will he confirm that, if Russia does not change course, he will consider working with the G7 to suspend Russia from the G8—something that he called for specifically at the start of the crisis in Georgia in 2008? That would go beyond simply withdrawing from the preparatory talks for Sochi or from the Sochi summit itself. Following the announcement that the UK Government are reviewing every outstanding arms export licence to Russia, to which he referred, will he confirm what the time scale is for the conclusions on that issue? What scope does he believe there is for an EU-wide agreement on arms exports?
Finally, will the Prime Minister not only confirm that he is open to wider economic and trade sanctions, as he said in his statement, but tell the House in what circumstances it would be appropriate to go down that road? He said in his statement, with a reference to Chancellor Merkel, that there would need to be a ratcheting up of pressure on Russia if it used the referendum in Crimea to strengthen its hold on Crimea. Will he say specifically whether economic and trade sanctions would be appropriate in those circumstances, given that the referendum is a pressing matter and will take place in a week or so?
In conclusion, we should continue to use all possible channels to facilitate dialogue and encourage the Ukrainian Government to be as broad based as possible. We recognise the constraints on the Prime Minister in seeking to reach EU-wide agreement. However, I urge him, particularly as we approach the referendum in Crimea, to apply maximum influence on our allies, so that maximum pressure can be applied on the Russian Government. Hesitancy or weakness in the EU’s response will send precisely the wrong message. The UK has a vital position of responsibility in ensuring that that does not happen and that, instead, the EU and the US stand together in clear and united resolve. We will provide him with all the necessary support as he seeks to achieve that.
The Prime Minister
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for what he has said. He has welcomed our approach, which is a combination of pressure and dialogue. That is absolutely right: we should be trying to de-escalate the crisis, but an element of deterrence is required to discourage further aggressive steps from Russia.
Let me try to answer each of the right hon. Gentleman’s questions. He is right that this is a test of European resolve. It is clearly difficult, as he says, to get agreement among 28 countries. There are countries in the European Union that have a heavy dependence on Russian energy, for instance, so we have to try to bring everyone along in the argument. That is what happened at the European Council. A lot of people were expecting a strong US response and an EU response that was well behind it. That did not happen. Given everything, the EU response was a relatively good one.
The right hon. Gentleman asked whether further measures will be needed. That will obviously depend on the Russian response. We are trying to be clear, predictable and consistent in setting out what has been done, what will need to be done if the talks do not get going, and what further steps would be taken if Russia took further aggressive steps, for instance in eastern Ukraine. Setting that out in advance helps people to understand the depth of concern in the EU and the preparedness for action.
The right hon. Gentleman asked whether asset freezes would be put in place in days rather than weeks. Obviously, that depends on whether the Russians set up the contact group and start the dialogue with the Ukrainian Government. If they do not, asset freezes and travel bans will follow, and yes, that should follow in a matter of days not weeks, because the setting up of the contact group and the starting of talks is not a particularly difficult step for the Russians to take if they genuinely want to see this ended through a process of dialogue, rather than continuing with this conflict.
The right hon. Gentleman’s comment about linking the EU-Russia summit with the G8 is absolutely right. It would be unthinkable for a G8 not to go ahead while an EU-Russia summit did go ahead; these things have to be considered in tandem. He also asked whether it would be right to resuscitate the G7, rather than going ahead with the G8. If we do not make progress on a contact group and if Russia takes further steps, clearly one of the measures that we could bring forward relatively quickly would be to take a different approach by going back to a G7, rather than holding a G8, but let us hope that that is not necessary.
In relation to arms, the right hon. Gentleman made the point that we should try to take action across the EU, and I very much agree with that. I have set out today my own view about arms licences from Britain, and we will be working within the European Council to try to achieve the greatest possible common ground on this. The fact is that some countries have substantial exports to Russia, but as I said at the Council, everyone is going to have to consider things that might be painful and difficult for their own country, and I think that the countries concerned are prepared to take those steps.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about the issue with Crimea, and about what consequences could follow there. It is very clear that the international community is not going to recognise that illegal and illegitimate referendum. As I said, it is a fairly farcical referendum, because people cannot get out and campaign across Crimea. There is not even a proper electoral register there, there are troops all over the territory and Ukrainian politicians are unable to travel from one part of their country to another. So the referendum is clearly not only illegal but rather farcical. Again, the answer lies in Russia’s hand, because this is about how it reacts to this illegal and illegitimate referendum. If it reacts by saying that it is somehow legitimate, consequences should follow from that.
The right hon. Gentleman asked whether we should put maximum influence on our allies in Europe to try to strengthen these statements and measures, and we will. He made the point that the EU and the US should work together, and that is exactly what I believe we achieved last week. Also, behind his questions was the idea that we should be trying strategically to make the European Union member states less dependent on Russia. Some are heavily dependent on it for oil and gas, and it is right that the European Union should spend more time thinking about that.
Sir Peter Tapsell (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
Why is it acceptable for the Scottish nationalists to be granted a referendum in Scotland on constitutional arrangements dating back to 1707, but unacceptable for Russian nationalists in the Crimea to have a referendum about constitutional arrangements that date back only to 1954? Does my right hon. Friend agree that, if the Crimean referendum could be postponed until such time as international observers could be put in place to ensure that the referendum was genuine, that would be by far the most sensible solution to the problem?
The Prime Minister
To answer the Father of the House directly, the difference between the Scottish referendum and the one in Crimea is that the Scottish referendum is legal. It was discussed and debated in this House and in the Scottish Parliament, and we went a long way to put in place arrangements that I have described as not only decisive and fair but legal. The difference between those arrangements and the Crimean referendum is that the Crimean referendum is illegitimate and illegal under the Ukrainian constitution. That is not to say that the people of Ukraine or of Crimea cannot, over time, find a way of expressing their own preferences. That is what we have done in Scotland, and of course they can do it there too, but the way in which this referendum has come about is clearly illegitimate and illegal; that is the difference.
Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)
Against the background of thugs in Crimea blocking the admission of OSCE monitors into Crimea, what does the Prime Minister think of Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s claim last week that one of the ways of resolving the matter peacefully is by using the OSCE?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman, who served as Foreign Secretary, speaks with great knowledge. The fact is that a number of things our Russian interlocutors have said have turned out simply not to be true. We have to be very clear in challenging them on that. Of course Russia has an interest in having a strong and positive relationship with Ukraine, which we understand and welcome, but in these circumstances some of the things that have been said about what is happening on the ground, the consequences that would follow certain actions, and indeed the point he has just made, show that they have not been entirely straightforward with us.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
I welcome the steps that have already been taken and the option of much stronger economic sanctions, but the presence of small but visible numbers of neo-fascist thugs on the streets of Ukraine, and indeed on the TV screens of Russia, is clearly just playing into Vladimir Putin’s hands. Can we assist the Government of Ukraine in returning control of law and order on the streets to the regular police as soon as possible?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is clearly right that in Ukraine, as in all countries, we need to see legitimate forces of law and order—the police and the military—with responsible roles, rather than militias. But I think that we should be very careful not to do what the Russians are doing, which is to exaggerate the claims they are making in order to justify some of their actions. Of course, as I have said, what we need in Ukraine is respect for all minorities and all the different languages, including the Russian language speakers. I am confident that the Ukrainian Government understand that.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
I welcome the fact that the Prime Minister has come to the House to make a statement on the European Council, something he has not done quite as assiduously as I think he should have done in the past. Did he have an opportunity to speak in the margin to other NATO members, given that he is preparing for a NATO council in September in Wales? Presumably at that stage article 5 will suddenly have acquired a new pertinence to quite a number of EU member states.
The Prime Minister
First, I say to the hon. Lady, for whom I have considerable respect, that I think that I have made more statements following European Councils than my predecessors, not least because their number has gone up. Every now and again we make a written statement, but normally we make an oral one.
Secondly, on the issue the hon. Lady raised, I took the time to speak to as many colleagues as I could, including a number of NATO colleagues. Obviously there is great concern, particularly from our colleagues in the Baltic states and in Poland, and I listened very carefully to what they said. I think that it is very important that we emphasise the security guarantees that NATO provides and that they should have confidence and certainty in them. I think that those countries also speak with great knowledge about what works when standing up to, and being clear about, these threats from Russia.
Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)
Although we all want to see the emergence of a reliable new Russia that abides by the rules, does my right hon. Friend agree that, in order to ensure that the costs of standing up to aggression are fully met, we need a serious rethink as we approach the next strategic defence review and the agenda of the NATO summit?
The Prime Minister
I think that my right hon. Friend is right. All these events should always cause us to look again at our strategy and at the decisions we have made. I think that they emphasise the importance of standing by our NATO allies and strengthening NATO. They also emphasise the importance of dealing with new threats, such as cyber. Obviously we will take all those things into account in the next strategic defence review.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
Since the Prime Minister has become an expert on promising referendums on the EU, then postponing them, and then promising another, what right has he to tell Putin that he cannot have one in Crimea?
The Prime Minister
I think that I answered that question pretty comprehensively in response to my right hon. Friend the Father of the House. Of course, any country that wants to can hold a referendum under its constitution—that is what constitutions are able to deliver—but it has to be fair and legal. It is quite clear—everybody agrees, except the Russians—that this referendum is illegitimate, illegal and will not be recognised by the international community.
Sir Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)
With the so-called referendum due to be held on Sunday, time is not on our side. Now that Russia is far more integrated into the world economy, the most effective short-term pressure that can be applied is financial and economic, but we should not be looking just at national assets. Does the Prime Minister agree that Russian banks and corporations that are contemplating taking over Ukrainian assets in Crimea should be warned that if they go down that road, they will be denied access to western financial institutions?
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend makes an important point. The three-phased approach sets out that if there are further Russian moves on eastern Ukraine or to further destabilise Ukraine, we as the European Union would be prepared to bring forward a range of economic and other sanctions which, as it states in the European Council conclusions, would cover a broad range of areas. Nothing is off the table. Of course, these things are never easy for democracies to carry out. It was pointed out at the meeting that some countries might suffer more with energy sanctions, some with financial sanctions, and some more with defence sanctions. As the European Union, and as member states, we must consider what steps would be necessary to send a clear message to Russia. My right hon. Friend’s point is a good one.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I am glad that the Prime Minister has scotched the idea that some seem to have that it is somehow acceptable for Russia to subsume Crimea on the basis that a majority of Crimeans speak Russian. That is the language of 1938, and it did not do very well for Czechoslovakia in the end. May I urge the Prime Minister to do one thing immediately? The United States of America has already done this, and the European Parliament has called on all countries in Europe to do so, as has the Council of Europe. Will he tell the Russian officials who were involved in the murder of Sergei Magnitsky and in the corruption he unveiled that they are not welcome in this country?
The Prime Minister
As ever, the hon. Gentleman speaks powerfully about these issues, and those are the sorts of things we can take into account when looking at individuals who will be affected by travel bans and asset freezes. On historical analogies—a number of people are making such points—I think that perhaps the best ones to draw are by looking at what happened to Georgia and the frozen conflicts of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and in Transnistria. There is a pattern, and we need to interrupt it by the European Union and member states, with our American allies and others, taking a strong stance.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Will the Prime Minister now seek fundamental changes in EU energy policy? Some member states are far too dependent on Russian gas, and the rest of us are far too dependent on intermittent, dear and scarce sources of energy, owing to EU directives. Do we not need to get control of our power to be able to reply?
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend is entirely right. Here in the UK, we are not reliant to any significant degree on Russian supplies of gas, but some countries in Europe receive 60% or 70% more of their gas from them. As a European Union we need to think about how to make ourselves more resilient as a group of countries, and part of that will be by completing the European energy single market, which will make a difference to those countries. This is clearly a good moment to press that concern in Europe and get more done.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
I happen to believe that there should be a legal and responsible referendum as far as Crimea is concerned—one that is under international control and not the sort of effort the Russians are organising. Whatever views we hold about Crimea, should we not totally condemn what Russia has done? Outright thuggery against part of a neighbouring and sovereign state should certainly be condemned.
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and we should not only condemn the Russian action, but set out the consequences that will follow. On the referendum, a number of Members of this House have taken part in election campaigns and referendum campaigns, and it is worth thinking about how practical it is to hold a referendum between now and Sunday when there is no register, no campaign, and Ukrainian politicians cannot travel round their country. It is not only illegal but literally farcical to think of that going ahead and in any way being respected, responded to, or legitimised by the Russians or anybody else.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Have the arrangements we have put in place for the safe withdrawal of troops and especially heavy equipment from Afghanistan by the end of this year in any way been affected by the tension that has arisen between us and Russia?
The Prime Minister
We have not received any information that would lead us to think that. If we are going to take steps—diplomatically, politically and, potentially, economically—we should take them because it is the right thing to do. We should recognise that there may be consequences from some of those things. There could be consequences for the City of London and some European defence industries, or for energy or other interests around Europe. However, we should proceed knowing that what we are doing is sensible, legitimate, proportionate, consistent and right.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
I welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment to sign the association agreement before the elections on 25 March. A poll of Ukrainians last year showed that the vast majority want to be members of the EU. Were there any discussions about Ukraine joining the EU as a candidate country, because that could provide focus for the Ukrainians at this time of instability?
The Prime Minister
I have great respect for the right hon. Gentleman. There were no discussions on Ukraine’s long-term aims to join the EU. The discussion was about what progress we could make on the association agreement. It was an important debate, because European colleagues felt strongly that we could not indicate that we would have been happy to sign an association agreement with the previous President but hold back from signing one with the current Administration. We therefore came forward with the idea of signing the political part of the association agreement, lowering European tariffs as a unilateral gesture to help the Ukrainian economy, and pressing ahead with the rest of the agreement in a proper time frame.
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
My right hon. Friend has spoken of the inability of Ukrainian politicians to campaign on the Crimea. Will he confirm that a referendum scratched together in 10 days at gunpoint at the behest of a foreign power can never be regarded as legitimate, fair or free?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend puts it extremely well. The referendum is obviously not free, fair or legitimate, and we should have no hesitation in saying so.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
A week ago, the Foreign Secretary assured the House that there was no question of Ukraine joining NATO. Since then, we have had a steady stream of statements from the NATO Secretary-General, who has spoken at great length and expansively of expanding NATO and once more getting very close to Russia. Does the Prime Minister believe that the NATO Secretary-General should calm down a bit, and that there should be less talk of expansion, to try to de-escalate the tensions rather than increase them?
The Prime Minister
Ukrainian membership of NATO is not on the agenda at present, but it is absolutely right that NATO countries are responding as strongly and as clearly to the threat of Russian aggression and destabilisation as they are. We should listen particularly to countries such as the Baltic states and Poland that wanted to join NATO. We made absolutely the right decision to allow them to do so.
Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that accepting a Russian seizure of part of Ukraine is against the national interests of the UK?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes an important point. We should define what our national interest is in this instance, and I think it is that Britain benefits from there being a world where countries obey the rules and where there is a rules-based global system. We are an international country—a country that relies on the world’s markets being open, and on countries obeying norms and standards of behaviour. We know what price is paid if we turn a blind eye when such things happen: we build up much bigger problems for the future.
Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
At the critical moment a few weeks ago, and during the street protests in Kiev, the Foreign Ministers of Germany, France and Poland represented the European Union. Why was Britain absent from that group? Was it a deliberate choice of the UK Government, or was it a reflection of our threat to leave the European Union in three years’ time?
The Prime Minister
We strongly supported the work that the Foreign Secretaries of Poland, Germany and France did. They had the strong support of the UK Foreign Secretary, who was in Brazil at the time of that meeting. That meeting was important, but if anyone wants to say that Britain has somehow not played a leading role in bringing together international action on the crisis, they would have quite a hard argument to make. The Foreign Secretary was the first leading politician to get to Kiev and listen to the politicians themselves after the events. We helped to co-ordinate that important EU statement, and we are helping to bring the United States and the EU together on a concerted set of actions. I commend all the work my Foreign Secretary has done.
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
I refer to the answer to our right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood). Does the Prime Minister agree that recent events demonstrate the need for the UK to be as energy self-sufficient as possible, to maximise the returns from North sea oil and gas, and to utilise fully the potential of UK fracking to help ensure that the UK can be as energy self-sufficient as possible?
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend makes a strong argument. Britain has a diverse source of energy supplies—we have North sea oil and gas, we have long-term supply contracts with countries such as Qatar, we have our nuclear industry which we are now reinvigorating, and a large investment in renewables. One of the arguments that colleagues were making at the European Council was that we should encourage the US to start exporting some of its gas. That would be hugely beneficial and something that we should support, but in my view it raised the question why the European Union is not doing more to support and promote recovering unconventional gas. We should be doing that ourselves in order to enhance our energy security, and that goes for all the countries of the European Union.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
Can the Prime Minister tell the House what the international community might do to protect the Crimean Tatars? By the same token, what message have the British Government given to the new Ukrainian Government about the protection of Russian minorities?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Lady makes an important point. In all our dealings with the Russians and with the new Ukrainian Government, we have set out the importance of making sure that the new Ukrainian Government are inclusive and that the Ukrainian elections give proper rights to minorities and to Russian speakers. As I say, we emphasised that point to the Russians as well, and obviously the Tatars in Crimea are a case in point.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I join my right hon. Friend in his condemnation of Russian action and duplicity in Ukraine. How does he think the west can help de-escalate, given that Ukrainian society is deeply divided and the present Government represent only one faction and are unelected? Should we not call for new elections in Ukraine—the election of a national Government—and should we not take the EU association agreement off the table as an unnecessary provocation in the current situation?
The Prime Minister
The best way that Britain can help to de-escalate this crisis is by encouraging a talks process. That is why we came up with the idea of a contact group to help Russia and Ukraine talk to each other in the company of important European powers and organisations, and that is what we should push very hard. However, I take issue with my hon. Friend’s description of the Ukrainian Government. The Ukrainian Parliament had to react to the fact that the President left the country, and it took constitutional steps to put a transitional Government in place. That transitional Government have said it is important to respect the rights of Russian speakers and minorities, and they have had that point put to them by others as well. I do not think it is fair in any way to blame the European Union for this crisis. The European Union rightly has partnership and neighbourhood approaches to its neighbours but these are voluntarily entered into, and it is right that the European Union has those arrangements.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
I thank the Prime Minister for his statement and early sight of it. Notwithstanding his response to the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), does he share my disappointment at the way the OSCE has been treated and prevented from carrying out an important task on the ground? What extra support can the UK Government give the OSCE to ensure that it does that vital task?
The Prime Minister
We will keep supporting the OSCE in the work that it does. The hon. Gentleman is right that the way potential observers and observer missions have been treated is appalling. They should be there; they play a vital role. We will do everything we can to support them. The fact that they are not being allowed in is a material consideration in thinking about the steps that we take next.
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) has perambulated across the Bench from its middle to its end. Some people might think it is almost as difficult for me to keep an eye on him as it is for the Government Whips. I call Mr Mark Pritchard.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
I have a Panel of Chairs meeting to attend—I am grateful for being appointed to the panel.
Instead of listening to the criticism of some Opposition Back Benchers, the Prime Minister should be commended not only for his statement but for his leadership on this issue in Europe along with the Foreign Secretary. On the issue of European unity, is it not the case that while Germany, Hungary and the energy axis aligned with Russia might agree on phase 1 on the European strategy, phases 2 and 3 may be more challenging?
The Prime Minister
I am grateful for what my hon. Friend says. All those countries—Hungary included—signed up to the European Council conclusions that were extensively debated around the table at that meeting, so they are committed. It states clearly that if further steps are taken to destabilise Ukraine, the European Union will take steps covering a range of economic areas. Nothing is ruled out from those areas. Yes, it will be difficult, but I am confident that were that eventuality to come to pass, we would be able to respond appropriately.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
Further to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Sir Richard Ottaway), it is good to hear the Prime Minister talk about asset freezes. He said in his statement that the Council has asked the European Commission to begin work on these additional measures. What work will the UK Government do to support the Commission in that, and what conversations has he had with our European partners on this specific subject?
The Prime Minister
We will hold a meeting tomorrow that will include representatives from the European Commission and from Britain, to go through and look in detail at which individuals could potentially be named. There should be maximum co-operation between the various European countries and European organisations about this.
Mr Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
Europe is littered with potential conflicts like that now afflicting Crimea. Is my right hon. Friend clear that the security of the whole of Europe depends on countries obeying the rules in this area, and while Russia remains outside those rules, she must be made to pay a very serious economic price?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is right. As I have said, we have these frozen conflicts that we still struggle with across Europe. We are making a concerted effort to ensure that this does not turn into another one. We have to accept that there will be real and quite painful consequences for European countries if we have to go ahead with sanctions, but we should do so because it would be a greater evil to allow this situation to continue.
Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)
Has the Prime Minister carried out any review of whether Russians are already moving their assets outside the UK before any freeze is introduced?
The Prime Minister
I have not seen any evidence of that. Sometimes the City of London is unfairly painted as somewhere that does not have tough rules on money laundering. It does. It is painted as somewhere that does not have tough rules on transparency. It does. Part of the G8 agenda was aimed at making sure that we get greater transparency, particularly on issues such as tax. We will take the necessary steps, if that becomes appropriate, and the City of London will play its full part.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
The Baltic republics border on Russia and they have substantial Russian populations. My right hon. Friend has already hinted that they must be somewhat nervous. They are NATO members, so does he think it appropriate that NATO should reaffirm the principle of collective security for all its members?
The Prime Minister
The collective security approach is at the heart of NATO, and we should reaffirm it every time NATO countries meet. Looking back, was it right to allow Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland and other countries to join the European Union and NATO? Yes, it was. It gave them the security and stability to make economic progress, combat corruption and have the sort of free and open societies that the House supports. They draw a lot of strength and succour from that, and we should not forget it.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
The Prime Minister is right to say there is a pattern to President Putin’s aggressive expansionism. Is the right hon. Gentleman not concerned that the measures he has committed to, or set out as possibilities, may prove insufficient to disrupt that pattern? Will we not look back with great regret if this emboldens Russia to continue on this path, potentially to the door of NATO members themselves?
The Prime Minister
If we pursue the steps we are contemplating and the steps the EU has agreed to take in a strong, predictable and consistent way, we can demonstrate to Russia that there is a pathway where it chooses dialogue and diplomacy to settle these issues, rather than further destabilisation. That would be the right outcome. I do not think that this approach is doomed not to work, for the simple reason that there are long-term costs to Russia in not recognising the importance of its economic and diplomatic relationship with Europe. For instance, we talk a lot about Russian gas. Yes, Europe is reliant on Russian gas to the tune of 25% of the EU market as a whole, but approximately 50% of Gazprom’s sales are to Europe. There are, therefore, strong arguments to say that Russia needs a sensible relationship with Europe more than Europe needs a sensible relationship with Russia. We should not talk ourselves down in any way. If we are tough, predictable and consistent we can help to emphasise to Russia that she should choose a path of diplomacy, not conflict.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the excuses for President Putin unleashing his troops in Crimea was that he wanted to protect the Russian minorities? When the Prime Minister next contacts the Ukrainian interim Prime Minister, will he urge him to broadcast and do whatever he can to promote an inclusive message to every citizen of Ukraine that they have nothing to fear from him, either as an interim Government or as an elected Government, and will he also urge the BBC to broadcast that inclusive message?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, which is that we should keep saying to the interim Ukrainian Government, and indeed to any new elected Ukrainian Government, that they should respect the rights of minorities and the rights of Russian speakers. We should also uncover how much of the propaganda we have been told about these sorts of things is made up, exaggerated and fabricated. We must not let the Russians get away with a propaganda campaign that says that were it not for the action of Russian troops in Crimea there would somehow have been an appalling bloodbath. I do not think that that is the truth at all, and we should challenge that at every opportunity.
Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)
The Prime Minister made reference in his statement to the importance of stabilising the new Ukrainian economy, and to the role of the EU and the International Monetary Fund. Can he give us more information on when the EU will be bringing forward a clear timetable and the milestones for the release of the financial assistance package?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Lady asks a very important question. The EU, rightly, is being guided by the IMF team in Ukraine. The IMF has the real expertise on what is needed in terms of conditions, guarantees and undertakings on economic reforms to release an IMF programme. The majority of the EU money is conditional on that IMF programme going ahead.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
Has the Prime Minister been able to assess reports that up to £100 billion was stolen by the previous Ukraine regime? What steps is the EU Council making to try to retrieve that money? Do we need more international action to ensure that offshore banks take very seriously their duty to check where money is coming from to avoid authoritarian regimes impoverishing their countries?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend’s point is absolutely key. As I said in the House last week, the reaction of the Ukrainian people against their former President was as much about being against corruption, and the massive larceny that has taken place on an industrial scale in that country, as it was about making a statement on whether to move closer to Europe or in another direction. I have seen reports of vast sums and figures. We should redouble our commitments to get to the bottom of whether we can recover any of the stolen money and return it to the Ukrainian people. In our international and diplomatic work, and in our aid work, we should redouble our efforts to tackle corruption right across the world.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
The Prime Minister will be aware that the European Union consistently supported the breakaway of Kosovo from Yugoslavia. Does that not hand a fairly useful argument to Russia, which will deploy it consistently with regard to Crimea?
The Prime Minister
Obviously the Russians do use that argument, and we hear it frequently. The events to which the hon. Gentleman has referred happened under an earlier Government, but the point that I would make, very much in their defence, is that there was a clear and present danger to the Kosovans who lived in Serbia. There was a real danger there, and we had to act in order to avert it. The steps that have been taken from that point onwards have been taken in a very deliberate and consistent way.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
I noted the Prime Minister’s earlier answers in connection with energy. Does he agree that Britain could make a really important contribution by encouraging other nation states to be as liberal and competitive as possible in relation to energy, in order to strengthen his case for saying that Russia needs Europe more than Europe needs Russia?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend has made an important point. If countries liberalise and open up their energy markets, they can secure greater diversity of supply, greater competition, and unbundling between producers and distributors, all of which can help to provide a more resilient set of energy conditions. We are encouraging such action throughout Europe, not least through the completion of the energy single market.
Gemma Doyle (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab/Co-op)
Last week the Foreign Secretary said that the chances of the United Kingdom signing a multi-technical co-operation agreement with Russia were now greatly reduced. The Prime Minister says that he wants to be tough. Is he now going to rule out the signing of that agreement?
The Prime Minister
As I have said, we are reviewing all our military co-operation with Russia. Obviously, the arrangements that we will want to continue are those linked to international arms agreements, inspections and the like, but I think that there will be an increasingly strong case for cancelling other arrangements. I repeat that I think that it is worth our doing this in conjunction with other European Union member states. I think that we maximise our influence and leverage in this regard if we act together, and I am keen that we should do so.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The Prime Minister is right to stress the importance of history. For instance, ultra-nationalist Lviv was once 80% Polish Lvov, and before that was Lemberg in the Austro-Hungarian empire. I wonder whether the Prime Minister—with his well-known charm, diplomatic skills and all the rest, and with no obvious self-interest, as a Briton—can act as a bridgehead between those in the European Union who want to alarm Russia by detaching Ukraine from traditional spheres of influence and Russian imperialists. I should have thought that he could play a very useful role in promoting diplomacy and good relations.
The Prime Minister
I am very grateful for my hon. Friend’s suggestion. I have spoken to President Putin, I think, four times since the crisis began, and one of the points that I always make is that Britain understands—and I think many in the European Union understand—that Russia has a very close interest in what happens in Ukraine, and wants to have a strong relationship with it in the future. The point that I make—and tried to make in my statement—is that this should not be a tug of war between Russia and Europe, but should be a chance for the Ukrainian people to decide their own future. They could easily choose a future in which they act as something of a bridge between Europe and Russia, and we should be actively encouraging that. We should be saying to the Russians, “Of course we want a Ukraine where Russian speakers and minorities are properly treated, and a Ukraine which has a proper relationship with both Russia and the European Union.”
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
Can the Prime Minister comment on whether his party is still sitting in the same political grouping as President Putin’s United Russia in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe? If it is—and it may well not be—what is he going to do about it?
The Prime Minister
I can satisfy the hon. Gentleman by saying that that is no longer the case.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
Events in Crimea are reminding us yet again that powerful countries which are not necessarily friendly to the west are not only increasing their defence spending, but are prepared to project their capability. Was there any discussion, or indeed recognition, in the European Council of the need to raise defence spending from its present low levels?
The Prime Minister
We were very much discussing the diplomatic, political and economic steps that needed to be taken, rather than any military steps, but I agree with my hon. Friend that it is important for us to maintain a proper level of defence spending. Britain has one of the top five defence budgets anywhere in the world. However, I think that even more important than the amount of money that we spend are the capabilities that we buy with that money. It is very important for us to modernise the way in which we spend our money, and we should encourage all European countries to do that as well.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
I appreciate that last week the UN special envoy to Ukraine ran into some difficulties, but what discussions have taken place about the UN’s role in the escalating crisis in Crimea?
The Prime Minister
It is important that the UN is at the centre of this, not least because it makes it even more difficult for the Russians to slide away from their responsibilities—they often appeal to the UN and cite the UN charter when making their arguments. Therefore, the UN should be part of the contact group that would include the EU, the United States and European countries such as the UK. In that way, the UN can play a major role in helping to pursue a path of talks and diplomacy, which is the right way to de-escalate the conflict.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Obviously, the EU Council meeting was dominated by events in Crimea, but on a related matter can the Prime Minister update the House on the association agreements with Georgia and Moldova?
The Prime Minister
We want to see these association agreements proceed. As I said in answer to an earlier question, the EU has different instruments for having friendly relations with neighbours and other nearby countries. It is right to pursue those and to offer such agreements, so on all those cases we should see progress. As was the case with Ukraine, we should not sign these agreements without thinking carefully about the steps that we expect the countries to take at the same time.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
Given that OSCE observers have been prevented from crossing into Crimea by armed men, what steps is the Prime Minister taking to persuade President Putin to agree the mandate for the OSCE’s monitoring mission?
The Prime Minister
I spoke to President Putin most recently on Sunday morning. One of the points I made to him was the importance of ensuring that the OSCE is properly handled and allowed to continue its missions. This is part of the argument we need to have with the Russians about how to get off the track that they are on and to get on a diplomatic, political and talks track. The OSCE, which is an organisation they respect, should be part of that.
Charles Hendry (Wealden) (Con)
The Prime Minister will be aware that, as a result of the policies he has put in place, our trade with Russia has grown dramatically in recent years and there are now over 600 British companies operating in Russia. Does he agree that, even in times of political stress, it should be a last resort to jeopardise those links, not just because of their economic importance but because they are a vital way of improving understanding between our countries?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes an important point. I support a good relationship between Britain and Russia and have taken steps as Prime Minister to try to put that in place. We have huge issues and difficulties between us still, not least the Litvinenko measures that remain in place, and clearly this is going to be a major impediment to a strong relationship between Britain and Russia, unless Russia takes the diplomatic path. We should hope that it does and work towards encouraging it to do so. If that happens, I see no reason why important economic relations, as we have discussed, could not continue.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
Is it not important to emphasise time and again that to divide Ukraine simplistically into Russian-speakers and Ukrainian-speakers is not a representation of the true situation? There are communities, families and individuals who are both Ukrainian and Russian-speaking. It is important to recognise the rights of minorities across Ukraine and to recognise the rights of different regions, but is not that intermingling of culture and languages a reason why there needs to be a commitment to a united and independent Ukraine?
The Prime Minister
I echo every word that the hon. Gentleman has said. It is important to recognise how many Russian speakers in Ukraine have said that they support a strong and independent Ukraine and do not welcome Russian intervention. As I have said, we should not fall into the trap of believing a lot of the Russian propaganda—a lot of what we have heard has turned out to be just that.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend and the Foreign Secretary on all they have done. As I see it, the key is the port of Sevastopol. If Ukraine continues to look to the west, how do we square that circle with the Russians, who have concerns about its use and access to the Mediterranean?
The Prime Minister
The point I would make, and indeed have made, to President Putin is that a proper, independent, prosperous Ukraine will want to emphasise its links and relationship with Russia as much as its links and relationship with the EU. Clearly, there were pre-existing agreements in place for the Russians to have their Black sea port in Crimea and there is no reason why those things should not continue. What we need to get back to, as I have said, is a diplomatic track where Ukraine and Russia can have sensible conversations about the future.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
Further to the question of my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle), does the Prime Minister not think it might be more reassuring for the British public if he were completely to rule out any sharing of military and technical information with the Russians for the foreseeable future?
The Prime Minister
I think I have given a fairly clear answer, which is that we are reviewing all the military relations and contacts between Britain and Russia. I have said that export licences for anything that could be used in Ukraine would obviously be very difficult to justify and that we should continue with the military co-operation where it is about, for instance, inspections mandated under international treaties. I have also said that we should take this area of military co-operation and, with our European Union partners, try to agree on a set of principles that would follow as part of either phase 2 or phase 3, as I set out.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
I very much welcome the statement by the Prime Minister. Russia is a member of the United Nations Security Council and it is violating the UN charter by violating another country’s sovereignty. Russia has also in the past vetoed United Nations humanitarian action around the world. Is it the right time to look at reforming the UN Security Council and its vetoing system?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend raises a subject that can get diplomats talking for ever and ever, possibly without a conclusion. I think that what this demonstrates is the need to consider at the UN Security Council resolutions that may require Russia to show her colours in this regard. I remember a number of occasions when Russia, and indeed China, have talked about the importance of non-interference in the affairs of another nation state, yet what we see here is interference in the affairs of another sovereign nation state, Ukraine.
Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
Further to the Prime Minister’s response to my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) on the International Monetary Fund, Ukraine is facing economic collapse, and Gazprom is threatening to cut off gas supplies. There is an urgency that does not seem to be recognised in the IMF timetables. What efforts are the Prime Minister and the EU making to get it to address the urgent need for financial assistance?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point and I discussed this specific issue with Chancellor Merkel last night in Hanover. The IMF has the ability to move very quickly, should it judge it necessary, to support Ukraine’s economy and national finances. There is a team there at the moment which is looking at the sort of programme that could be put together, but even before a programme becomes deliverable, if it needs to step in and act faster, it can.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that Russia’s energy supplies give it tremendous muscle in eastern Europe and in other parts of Europe too. That has been reiterated many times this afternoon. Specifically, over the medium term will he encourage the development of the southern corridor gas and oil pipelines from the south Caucasus across Turkey and into southern Europe—pipelines promoted by BP, which will go a long way to helping to develop diversification of Europe’s energy landscape?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Diversifying Europe’s energy supplies requires looking at what action we can take to link Europe to some of the supplies in the Caucasus. I remember discussing this issue with President Aliyev when I met him recently, and I know the Foreign Secretary has had those discussions as well. This is part of a larger pattern of diversifying Europe’s energy supplies and making us more resilient in this sort of situation.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Further to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr Love), Gazprom has already warned Ukraine that it may cut off gas exports unless it pays back the $1.89 billion debt it owes. Surely now is the time for the timely transfer of financial support to allow Ukraine to pay off that debt to prevent a repeat of 2009, but what contingency plans are in place should that not happen?
The Prime Minister
Clearly, Ukraine needs to pay its bills, as well as paying its pensioners and funding its Government to ensure—[Interruption.] I know that the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) misses the old days of the Soviet Union, but perhaps he will stop speaking from a sedentary position for five minutes. It is important that Ukraine pays its bills, and an IMF programme and IMF action can help that to happen.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
Sometimes it is the weight of small diplomatic acts, as well as the large, that make a breakthrough that can help. Back in 2008, the Prime Minister, then the Leader of the Opposition, made the bold pledge to withdraw his MPs, as well as, I hope, the people who sit in the other place, from the European Democrat Group in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, following the invasion of Georgia. Is it now right to think about membership of that group again, following the issues in Ukraine and Crimea?
The Prime Minister
It just shows that in politics, even if you give a straight answer to a straight question, you can still get the question again. I thought I said a minute ago that we have made sure that the Russians are out of the group that we sit in as part of the Council of Europe. We have taken that step, which is the right step. There may be steps for other political parties to think about taking now.
Points of Order
(10 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker—
Mr Speaker
I was about to thank the Prime Minister and the 47 Back Benchers who questioned him, in 47 minutes of exclusively Back-Bench time, which shows just what we can do when the questions and answers are pithy. But things would not be complete without points of order.
Pete Wishart
I am grateful, Mr Speaker. Last Thursday, the Secretary of State for Defence made a statement on the radiation leak at the Government’s Vulcan nuclear reactor test establishment at Dounreay. He said that
“there has been no measurable change in the radiation discharge.”—[Official Report, 6 March 2014; Vol. 576, c. 1085.]
We have since learned that all the environment agencies throughout the UK have found a tenfold increase in radioactive emissions. Clearly, both cannot be right. Have you had any indication, Mr Speaker, whether either the Secretary of State or the Prime Minister will come forward to put the record straight? If it is the Prime Minister, may we also have an explanation as to why Scottish Ministers were not told and perhaps even an apology for that omission?
Mr Speaker
The short answer is that I have had no indication from any Minister of an intention to make a statement on this matter. Whether intentions will change on the back of the hon. Gentleman’s observations, I leave time and speculation by colleagues to reveal. We will leave it there for today, but the hon. Gentleman has put his point on the record.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker, I hope you will not mind me sucking up to you for a bit. In my view, you are one of the best Speakers that we have had in recent years, because you have tried to make this place more topical. We have had an interesting statement and questions on Ukraine, but such issues are complex, and it is hard to express difficult economic and historical arguments in a 30-second question. As we have a House of Commons in which we are not overburdened with work at the moment, will you use your good offices with those who decide things—I do not know how much power you have—to get a full day’s debate on Ukraine, which after all is an extraordinarily important issue that we need to discuss urgently?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for his characteristic good humour in putting it. As he knows, that is not a matter for the Chair. The Government Chief Whip is present, but at least as importantly the Leader of the House is also present.
As colleagues know and as people who attend our proceedings appreciate, I am the servant of the House. I love listening to my colleagues on matters of local, national and global importance. My appetite for listening to them is pretty much unlimited. I would love there to be a full day’s debate and I would love to be in the Chair to hear the bulk of it, but I am dependent on a superior power in these matters, namely the Leader of the House. The hon. Gentleman, however, has made his point, and the Leader of the House cannot fail to have heard his point and my response. As for the response of the Leader of the House, it has to be said that it should probably be best described by Hansard as impassive.
Care Bill [Lords] (Programme) (No. 2)
Proceedings | Time for conclusion of proceedings |
|---|---|
New Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part 1, amendments to Part 1 | 7.00pm on the first day |
New Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part 2, amendments to Part 2 | 9.00pm on the first day |
New Clauses and new Schedules relating to Chapter 4 of Part 3, amendments to Chapter 4 of Part 3, new Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part 4, amendments to Part 4, new Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part 5, amendments to Part 5, remaining proceedings on Consideration | 6.00pm on the second day |
Care Bill [Lords]
(10 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
19:00 - The House divided: - Ayes: 13 / Noes: 276 - Question accordingly negatived.
19:13 - The House divided: - Ayes: 208 / Noes: 280 - Question accordingly negatived.
19:26 - The House divided: - Ayes: 212 / Noes: 269 - Question accordingly negatived.
20:50 - The House divided: - Ayes: 217 / Noes: 265 - Question accordingly negatived.
21:02 - The House divided: - Ayes: 220 / Noes: 282 - Question accordingly negatived.
Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Mr Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 2—Review of the case for establishing a commissioner for older people in England
‘(1) The Secretary of State shall establish an independent review of the case for establishing a statutory office of Commissioner for Older People in England.
(2) The review will consider the—
(a) increasing diversity of the older population in England;
(b) UN Principles for Older Persons in 1991 (UN 1991) and other relevant developments in international policy on ageing;
(c) lessons from the establishment of such offices in Wales and Northern Ireland;
(d) balance of advocacy, investigatory and enforcement duties and powers to be granted to the office in statute;
(e) jurisdiction of the office in relation to other public bodies;
(f) relationship of the office to Ministers;
(g) accountability of the office to Parliament;
(h) appointment of the office holder;
(i) human and financial resources necessary to support the office; and
(j) any other matters the Secretary of State sets out in the terms of reference of the review.
(3) The review will report and make recommendations to the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State by December 2014.’.
New clause 3—Duty to identify carers
‘Each NHS body in a local authority’s area, as defined in section 6(8), shall co-operate with the local authority to ensure that effective procedures exist to identify patients who are or are about to become carers and make arrangements for carers to receive appropriate information and advice.’.
New clause 4—Local authority duty to make reasonable charges
‘Where a local authority that meets an individual’s needs under sections 18 to 20 of Part 1 of this Act is satisfied that the individual’s means are insufficient for it to be reasonably practicable for the individual to pay the amount which would otherwise be charged, the authority shall not require the individual to pay more for it than it appears to them that it is reasonably practicable to be paid.’.
New clause 5—Portability of care
‘(1) The Secretary of State must prepare a report containing an assessment of what primary or secondary legislation would be required to ensure people in receipt of care and support in the community in the UK receive continuity of such care and support if they change their place of residence, with particular reference to moves between countries of the United Kingdom.
(2) The report under subsection (1) must be laid before each House of Parliament six months after this Bill receives Royal Assent.’.
New clause 7—Independent review of future demand for social care and healthcare
‘(1) The Secretary of State shall make arrangements for an independent review of, and report on, the likely demand for adult social care, public health and healthcare services in England over the next twenty years.
(2) The objective of the review mentioned in subsection (1) shall be to identify the key factors determining the financial and other resources required to ensure that social care and health functions as a cost effective, high quality, equitable, integrated and sustainable single system which—
(a) promotes individual well-being (as defined in Part 1 of this Act),
(b) enables access to be determined on the basis of need, and
(c) can meet forecast demand.
(3) The arrangements for the conduct of review shall include provision for a fully integrated modeling and analysis of health and social care including examination of—
(a) the technological, demographic and health status trends over the next two decades that may inform or affect demand for adult social care and health services;
(b) the inter-dependencies between adult social care, public health and healthcare and the appropriate balance between different types of intervention, in particular between:—
(i) health and social care,
(ii) primary and secondary care,
(iii) physical and mental health, and
(iv) treatment and prevention; and
(c) any other matter that the Secretary of State sets out in the review‘s terms of reference.
(4) The Secretary of State shall lay before each House of Parliament a copy of an interim report on emerging themes and trends identified by the first such review by the end of November 2014 and make arrangements for a consultation process to be undertaken in relation to those interim findings.
(5) The Secretary of State shall lay before each House of Parliament a copy of the final report by the end of July 2015.
(6) At no more than five year intervals, the Secretary of State shall make arrangements for the updating of the report of the review mentioned in subsection (1) with the same objective and approach as mentioned in subsections (2) and (3), and including such matters as are provided for in paragraph (3)(c), and shall prepare and lay before each House of Parliament a report on the outcomes.
(7) The Secretary of State shall prepare and lay before each House of Parliament, as appropriate, a statement on the extent to which the reports mentioned in subsections (1) and (6) inform the Government‘s wider fiscal and economic strategy and decisions in each public spending review.’.
New clause 9—Reporting on the funding for new costs arising from the Care Act
‘(1) The Joint Care and Support Reform Programme Board must inform the Secretary of State by an annual written report that it is satisfied whether sufficient funding is in place to ensure that social care is adequately funded and that the provisions in the Act can be implemented satisfactorily.
(2) In subsection (1), the “Joint Care and Support Reform Programme Board” means the board of that name consisting of representatives of (but not limited to): the Local Government Association, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and the Department of Health.
(3) The report mentioned in subsection (1) should include a statement of the satisfaction of the Joint Care and Support Reform Programme Board with (but not limited to)—
(a) adequacy of the funding of the provisions in this Act,
(b) on-going costs of implementation,
(c) an additional five yearly review of the short and medium term cost of setting the eligibility criteria at the level set out in regulations.’.
New clause 11—Provision of certain care and support services to be public function
‘(1) A person (“P”) who provides regulated social care for an individual under arrangements made with P by a public authority, or paid for by a public authority, is to be taken for the purposes of subsection (3)(b) of section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 (acts of public authorities) to be exercising a function of a public nature in doing so.
(2) This section applies to persons providing services regulated by the Care Quality Commission.
(3) In this section “social care” has the same meaning as in the Health and Social Care Act 2008.’.
New clause 13—Deferred payment data
‘The Health and Social Care Information Centre shall make arrangements to collect and publish data including, but not limited to—
(a) the number of individuals entering into a deferred payment arrangement,
(b) the proportion of those individuals who received—
(i) regulated financial advice,
(ii) other forms of advice, and
(iii) no advice
before entering into a deferred payment arrangement,
(c) the average length of time a deferred payment arrangement is held,
(d) the numbers of individuals holding such arrangements broken down by different periods of time held, and
(e) the amount of money deferred under such arrangement.’.
New clause 15—National framework for local authority fees for care providers
‘(1) The Secretary of State shall establish an indicative national formula with which local authorities shall determine the costs of care provision in their area.
(2) In having regard to the matters mentioned in section 5(2)(b), a local authority must derive fee levels for independent providers of care and support services from the formula mentioned in subsection (1).
(3) The Secretary of State shall make arrangements for the audit of local authority fee levels to determine their compliance with the duty mentioned in subsection (2) and the extent to which this contributes to the effective delivery of the requirements of section 5(2), with particular reference to paragraphs (b), (d), (e) and (f).
(4) The formula in subsection (1) shall be made by regulations laid in pursuance of section 123(4) of this Act.’.
New clause 17—Duty to review economic, financial and other factors affecting provision of care services
‘(1) The Secretary of State shall make arrangements for—
(a) a review of the economic and financial factors affecting the employment (including recruitment, training and development, effective deployment and retention) of care workers and the extent to which current policies, mechanisms and relevant compliance by regulated providers of care services make it more or less likely that the objectives of this Act will be realised; and
(b) a public consultation on the conclusions and recommendations of the review.
(2) The Secretary of State shall lay a report of the review and public consultation before each House of Parliament by 1 September 2014.’.
New clause 18—Impact of working conditions on quality of care
‘(1) In exercising their functions under Part 1 local authorities must assess and consider how working conditions for people employed in care and support services impact on the fulfilment of local authority duties under Part 1 of this Act.
(2) “Care and support services” means—
(a) services provided by a local authority; and
(b) services commissioned by a local authority.
(3) Regulations may specify particular matters local authorities must have regard to in relation to subsection (1).’.
New clause 19—Promoting health of carers
‘(1) In exercising their functions health bodies shall—
(a) promote and safeguard the health and well-being of carers;
(b) ensure that effective procedures exist to identify patients who are or are about to become carers;
(c) ensure that appropriate systems exist to ensure that carers receive appropriate information and advice; and
(d) ensure that systems are in place to ensure that the relevant general medical services are rendered to their patients who are carers.’.
New clause 20—Local authorities: duties with respect to young carers
‘(1) A local authority must ensure that it takes all reasonable steps to ensure that in relation to—
(a) any school within its area and under its control; and
(b) any functions it discharges in pursuance of its responsibilities as a children’s services authority, there is in place a policy that both identifies young carers and makes arrangement for the provision of support for pupils who are young carers.
(2) In discharging its duty under subsection (1), a local authority must have regard to any guidance given from time to time by the Secretary of State.’.
New clause 21—Further and higher education: duties with respect of student carers
‘(1) The responsible body of an institution to which this section applies must identify or make arrangements to identify student carers and have a policy in place on providing support for student carers.
(2) This section applies to—
(a) a university;
(b) any other institution within the higher education sector; and
(c) an institution within the further education sector.
(3) A responsible body is—
(a) in the case of an institution in subsection (2)(a) or (b), the governing body;
(b) in the case of a college of further education under the management of a board of management, the board of management; and
(c) in the case of any other college of further education, any board of governors of the college or any person responsible for the management of the college, whether or not formally constituted as a governing body or board of governors.’.
New clause 22—Duty for Financial Services Consumer Panel
‘(1) The Financial Services Consumer Panel at the Financial Conduct Authority shall have a duty to review the availability, quality, adequacy and effectiveness of financial advice being provided to care users and their families on the implications of the relevant provisions of this Act, and make an annual report thereon to the Secretary of State containing recommendations for steps to take to remedy any deficiencies identified by the Panel.
(2) The Secretary of State shall lay a copy of the report mentioned in subsection (1) before each House of Parliament. The first such report must be so laid within 12 months of this Act receiving Royal Assent.’.
New clause 23—Financial advice for care users: qualification to provide
‘(1) The Financial Conduct Authority shall prepare and conduct a review of the implications of the relevant provisions of this Act for—
(a) training and development; and
(b) the level of the required qualifications
for advisers seeking licences to provide financial advice to care users and their families.
(2) The Authority shall submit a report of the findings of the review mentioned in subsection (1) to the Secretary of State, along with recommendations.
(3) The Secretary of State shall lay a copy of the report mentioned in subsection (2) before each House of Parliament. The first such report must be so laid within 12 months of this Act receiving Royal Assent.’.
New clause 24—Public awareness
‘(1) Local authorities shall have a duty to prepare, publish, consult on and implement a plan for raising and maintaining awareness amongst the residents of their areas of the arrangements for social care, and in particular of any changes to such arrangements brought about by Part 1 of this Act.
(2) The Secretary of State shall prepare and lay before each House of Parliament an annual report on the level of public awareness and understanding of the arrangements for social care, in particular—
(a) awareness and understanding of the changes brought about by the provisions of this Act; and
(b) the effectiveness of local authorities’ implementation of their plans for raising public awareness in their areas.’.
New clause 26—Declassification of a police station as a place of safety for the purposes of section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983
‘(1) The definition of a place of safety in section 135(6) of the Mental Health Act 1983 shall no longer be read to include a police station for the purposes of section 136 of that Act.
(2) With regard to persons removed to a place of safety under section 136(1) of the Mental Health Act 1983, subsection (1) above shall have effect from—
(a) 1 April 2015, where such a person is aged 18 years or under; and
(b) 1 April 2017, where such a person is aged over 18 years.
(3) By 31 March 2015 the Secretary of State shall prepare and lay before each House of Parliament a report setting out the progress made by that date towards fulfilling the objective set out in subsection (1) above.’.
New clause 31—Register of persons who provide regulated social care
‘(1) Health Education England must make arrangements for the compilation, publication and maintenance of a register of persons as set out in section [Provision of certain care and support services to be public functions] who provide regulated social care for an individual under arrangements paid for by a public authority that have undertaken education and training in accordance with the duty set out in section 95.
(2) This duty may be delegated by HEE to Local Education and Training Boards established under section 101.’.
New clause 32—Funding and remuneration of home care workers
‘(1) The Secretary of State shall establish an independent review of the funding and remuneration of home care workers with a view to a report making recommendations regarding—
(a) hourly salary,
(b) remuneration of travel time,
(c) remuneration of travel costs,
(d) minimum time required properly to fulfil each of the care tasks and duties to be performed,
(e) establishment of an efficient means of recording arrival and departure times at residential settings, and
(f) the charging basis of the agency employing the care worker with a view to ensuring that all the costs of providing for (a) to (e) above are adequately met.
(2) The Secretary of State shall lay a copy of the report of the review mentioned in subsection (1) before each House of Parliament.’.
Amendment 26, in clause 1, page 2, line 5, at end insert—
(j) the right to living independently and being included in the community.’.
Amendment 21, in clause 5, page 6, line 2, leave out from ‘must’ to end of line 4, and insert—
‘(a) have regard to the need to ensure that sufficient services are available for meeting the needs for care and support of adults in its area and the needs for support of carers in its area; and
(b) ensure that the fee levels provided to independent providers for the delivery of care and support services are derived from a national formula which determines the accurate cost of care in each local authority area, the result of which will mean that the provisions of paragraphs (2)(b), (d), (e) and (f) can be delivered effectively.’.
Amendment 20, in clause 12, page 11, line 31, at end insert—
‘(aa) require the local authority, when carrying out the assessment, to capture an individual’s main and other disabling conditions.’.
Government amendments 1 and 2.
Amendment 31, in clause 24, page 22, line 39, at end insert—
‘(3A) The Secretary of State shall, after suitable consultation, establish by regulation a specified timeframe for the conclusion of the steps required of local authorities by virtue of this section.’.
Government amendment 3.
Amendment 32, in clause 27, page 25, line 8, leave out ‘keep under review generally’ and insert ‘review regularly’.
Amendment 33, page 25, line 42, at end insert—
‘(5A) The Secretary of State shall, after suitable consultation, establish by regulation appropriate arrangements and timetable for the regular review of care and support plans and of support plans by local authorities provided for in subsection (a).’.
Government amendments 4 and 5.
Amendment 27, in clause 42, page 38, line 24, at end insert—
‘(2A) There are different types of abuse, as defined in guidance.’.
Amendment 28, page 38, line 29, at end add—
‘(4) A relevant partner, as defined in section 6(7) has a duty, where it has reasonable cause to suspect a person is an adult at risk of abuse or neglect, and the adult appears to be within the local authority’s area, to inform the local authority of that fact.’.
Government amendments 6 and 14.
Amendment 22, in clause 76, page 69, line 33, after ‘adults’, insert ‘and children’.
Amendment 23, page 69, line 37, after ‘adults’, insert ‘and children’.
Amendment 24, page 69, line 42, after ‘adults’, insert ‘and children’.
Amendment 25, page 69, line 44, after ‘adults’, insert ‘or child’.
Government amendment 7.
Paul Burstow
I hope that the House will forgive my having a number of new clauses to explain in the time available to discuss part 1 of the Bill. I will try to crack on as quickly as possible to explain the thinking behind each of them. I will do so not in numerical order, but in order of importance, starting with the new clauses on which I particularly want to hear the Minister’s response.
First, I wish to discuss new clause 11, which deals with the Human Rights Act 1998 and its application to social care. The Act has enormous potential to improve the lives of those most vulnerable to human rights abuses in social care settings. People who are being provided care in their own homes or in care homes face risks in respect of their privacy, their family life, being safe and not suffering degrading treatment. Such matters are all very much at the heart of how we ensure that we provide dignified care.
I am sure that the Minister knows, as do other hon. Members, that a loophole has opened up in our law as a consequence of a judgment made by the courts some years ago. It arose in 2007 following the decision by the House of Lords in the YL v. Birmingham city council case. The Law Lords held that a private care home providing residential care services under contract to a local authority was not performing a “public function”, so its residents were excluded from the protections of the Human Rights Act. In practice, that means that domiciliary care users, or their families or carers, can complain to the care company, depending on the terms of their contract, but in many cases they will not be able to take their complaint any further. Contractual terms and conditions are important, but they can often fail to give the protection that we would want to see, and residents in care homes have no security of tenure and are often afraid to complain because of fear of eviction. Many people with care needs face additional challenges asserting their contractual rights, particularly if they lack the capacity to do so because of dementia or learning disabilities.
The decision that private and third sector care home providers were not directly bound by the Human Rights Act meant that thousands of service users had no direct legal remedy to hold their providers to account for abuse, neglect and undignified treatment, even though the public body commissioning those services remains bound in law by the Human Rights Act. There is need for change in this area. The loophole was partly closed by the previous Government, with cross-party support, through section 145 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008, which covers residential care services. However, under changes that this Bill will introduce, it will need to be reinstated by order, but there is a far better and more elegant way in which that could be done—by implementing new clause 11.
New clause 11 seeks to clarify the law so that all providers of publicly arranged or paid-for care are within the scope of the Human Rights Act. Service users who experience serious human rights abuses will then have direct means of legal redress. However, this is not just about going to law; it is about what goes on in the hearts and minds of those organisations and the attitude they take towards how they provide services, so the Human Rights Act has a part to play in culture change as well. For example, the Act has been successfully invoked in an argument about a local authority’s refusal to place a married couple in the same nursing home.
The Government have accepted that there is a loophole, and we very much welcome that. We raised the matter during consultation on and scrutiny of the draft Bill, and we offered up a suggestion, which their lordships adopted. In response to the Joint Committee, the Minister told us that organisations that were not covered by the Act should none the less consider themselves bound by it. Lord Hope, the recently retired Deputy President of the Supreme Court had this to say about that:
“Comments of the kind that were made, that people should consider themselves bound by a convention right, however well intentioned, do not have the force of the law”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 16 October 2013; Vol. 748, c. 549.]
That is why we need to give it the force of law, which is what new clause 11 attempts to do. It puts back the law to where Members of all parties expect it to be, and ensures that a poor judgment by the court is corrected.
New clause 1 deals with the issue of power of access. Last week, I handed in a letter to the Prime Minister, setting out the case for the measure. It was signed by 602 organisations and individuals, including Age UK, Mencap, the National Autistic Society and many others with expertise in the area of adult safeguarding. They all share a common concern that there is a gap in the law when it comes to protecting vulnerable people who have the ability to make decisions for themselves but who are living in a home with someone else who is abusing them or neglecting them and who is denying them, because of their ability to exert their authority over that person, the ability to get the protection that they need. The Law Commission took that view in its review of mental capacity legislation, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission also took that view in its analysis of the legislation.
In our debates in Committee, my hon. Friend the Minister of State said that when officials were asked to provide the evidence behind their advice that the new power was unnecessary, there was an opaqueness surrounding the issue. There was not the necessary level of clarity to understand what powers could be used and in what scenario. I must say to the Minister that the scenarios that have been offered up to justify the position that there is no need for legislation do not address the circumstance that I and my new clause 1 seek to address. I am talking about someone who legally has capacity but who is under duress and unable therefore to exercise their individual right to seek protection. As a consequence of that, we need this power.
Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)
I added my name to the right hon. Gentleman’s new clause. Does he agree that the Bill is putting in place a range of measures on new safeguarding boards, and that this power would complement the work that is now being done to raise the whole issue and to ensure that vulnerable people get the protection they need and their circumstances properly investigated?
Paul Burstow
The hon. Lady is right, and with her own experience in social work practice, she will know why this matters so much. She is right to say that in the Bill, for the first time, many aspects of adult safeguarding are put on a statutory basis, which is welcome. None the less, there is still a gap, which the Government with this Bill should seek to fill. We have had a lot of back and forth between the Minister of State and his officials, and I am grateful to him for the patience that he has shown. I just hope that the patience translates into something else. However, he has told Members that there is a balance of risks, and his judgment is that the powers are not needed. I say to him and to officials that if that is the case, why, in the scenario that I have described, can he not produce the evidence?
I welcome the fact that the Social Care Institute for Excellence has been commissioned to do work on this issue, but if there is a gap in the law, that will not fix it. It has been suggested that the problem is that practitioners are ignorant of the law. Again, I have to ask where the evidence is for that. Thanks to Action on Elder Abuse, which instituted a freedom of information request, we know that the evidence does not support that line either. So far, 84 out of 152 local authorities have responded. Twenty-nine councils have reported at least one instance in the past 12 months in which they have been unable to gain entry because a third party had denied them access. In 21 of those cases, they never gained access. Therefore, all the arts of negotiation and relationship building that are essential to good social work practice did not gain those people access, and who knows what happened to those individuals. Let us hope that they do not find their way on to the front page as a tragic story.
Not a single one of the 84 authorities that responded to that request have suggested that a failure to gain access was the result of a lack of knowledge. It is really about a lack not of knowledge but of that backstop power, which the new clause provides. In a survey of front-line practitioners, 365 of whom have responded, 82% believe that the power is necessary.
New clause 1 provides a proportionate power for a circuit judge, approved by the Court of Protection, to determine whether an entry warrant should be granted where a person is believed to be under duress and a victim of abuse. Let me be clear that the measure should be rarely used, but it is required for those circumstances in which a person is in the situation that I have described. I agree with the Minister about good social work, but just talking about good social work is not an adequate answer.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Who drafted new clause 1 and which main outside organisations support it?
Paul Burstow
Organisations that have supported the new clause, which I have drafted, include people with a legal background, social workers, Age UK and Mencap—those who often provide a voice for the voiceless. One of my concerns is that the people whom the Bill seeks to benefit are very likely to be those who are under duress and therefore unlikely or unable to express an opinion. That is why the new clause has been crafted to try to ensure that the necessary safeguards are built in.
New clause 3 addresses the issue of carers, particularly the identification of carers. Carers are the backbone of our care and support systems. Without them, those systems could not function in delivering the quality of care that we would expect. Those carers make huge sacrifices to care for their loved ones. Their health, their wealth and their lives are often sacrificed as a result of what they do. We know from the census that a carer is twice as likely to be in bad health as a non-carer.
The Government should be applauded for the fact that in this Bill and in the Children and Families Bill they have taken great strides to improve the rights of adult carers, parent carers, and young carers. They have listened, engaged and responded to the concerns that Members in all parts of this House and in the other place, and many carers’ organisations, have raised with them. However, all this hinges on whether carers are aware of these new rights and whether their council is successful in its new duty of identifying them, as required under the Bill. The problem is that the NHS is still left untouched. Millions of people caring for someone with a health problem may never come into contact with their council or be aware that that would be the next step in coping with their situation.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s conversion to the identification of carers by NHS bodies, because when he was in the role of Minister he did not support that. I hope that he can convert the current Minister. Is it not the case that, as Macmillan Cancer Support has said, 95% of carers for people with cancer, who may care for only a short time but for people with terminal illness, do not have any contact with local government and do not have a carers’ assessment, and is not that the key? Are we just going to let those people struggling in those difficult circumstances carry on doing so?
Paul Burstow
The hon. Lady is not a convert. She has been consistent and clear in her pursuit of this provision, both with her own Government and with this Government, and I hope that eventually her persistence will pay off. It has persuaded me, along with many carers’ organisations, of the need for such a change.
Institutionally, the NHS is not good at grasping the different responsibilities it has towards carers compared with those who are its immediate concern—the patients. As a result, it lets carers down institutionally, and that is what the new clause says we need to address. We need to change the NHS’s mindset institutionally to make sure that it recognises its responsibility for millions of people with caring responsibilities and asks the necessary questions. Macmillan Cancer Support has found that 78% of health care professionals have come across a cancer patient who has been admitted because their carer could not cope at home. Here is why the NHS must fully engage with carers: only one in three professionals who sees an accompanied patient always goes on to check whether the person with them is their carer.
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
I, too, have supported my right hon. Friend’s new clause, because this is an essential point. This Government should be proud of the support that they have introduced for the legion of unpaid carers who do such a fantastic job, but if their doctors, district nurses and health care professionals do not let them know about these rights, they are not really worth having.
Paul Burstow
That is absolutely right. This is not, as it can sometimes be portrayed, a case of “Let’s just have a tick-box”; it is about signalling a set of changes that need to happen in the culture of the organisation, so that when a patient visiting their GP or a consultant is accompanied by a member of their family or someone else who is supporting them, that instinctively forms part of the conversation about signposting and information about carers.
At the moment, just 7% of practitioners always signpost for a carers assessment. That is why we need to make sure, through this new clause, that we place a simple duty on the NHS so that it plays its part in identifying carers. One of the most shocking statistics is that 64% of health professionals think that that is necessary. They think that it will help them in their day-to-day practice and in ensuring that the issue is put up the agenda.
Mike Thornton (Eastleigh) (LD)
My right hon. Friend mentions Laing and Buisson. I believe that it has come up with a formula that should enable people to work out a fair funding system in advance. Is that something we could look at?
Paul Burstow
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is the basis of the average fair rate, which I mentioned. New clause 15 would provide a mechanism for establishing a formula by which fee rates are set transparently for both domiciliary and residential care. The organisations representing the sector believe that that would lead to much greater transparency, and I think that it would deal with some of the rather toxic relationships that sometimes appear to exist, both nationally and locally.
New clause 2 is about older people, particularly the proposition that we should take a leaf out of the book of our colleagues in Wales and Northern Ireland in relation to having a commissioner for older people. Ageism and ageist attitudes are endemic in our society and, indeed, in public services. Our society is ageing, with life spans increasing, and that profound change will affect us all. It has implications for how the NHS and care services behave, but it goes far wider.
My new clause simply calls on the Government to work on the mechanics of establishing such a post so that there is someone to listen to and give a voice to older people; to champion their vital contribution to our economy—in work, as care givers and as volunteers, mentors and community leaders—rather than their being seen as burdens, which is how older people are all too often portrayed; to challenge the complacent and lazy stereotypes; and to hold public services to account.
Such a role already exists in Northern Ireland, Wales and other parts of the world. It would involve asking such questions as: why do the 360,000 cases of abuse suffered by older people every year lead to so few prosecutions, why are older people excluded from clinical trials and other research, and why do we stop reporting people’s cancer survival rates once they pass the age of 75? I hope that the Minister is open to the idea, and I look forward to his response.
New clause 26 deals with the issue of mental health, which came up very briefly in Committee. I know that the Minister is a passionate champion of mental health concerns. The new clause simply says that if a person has an accident—for example, breaks their arm—suffers a stroke or has a heart attack, the last place they would expect it to be sorted out is a cell in a police station, but that that is exactly where people who have a mental health crisis find themselves. The statistics are stunning: 36% of all people who are taken to a place of safety find themselves in a police station and stay there for more than 10 hours. Not only have adults been subject to that process, but 263 children, on the most recent figures. My new clause simply seeks to place a sunset provision on the definition of a place of safety, including a police station, which should create a way of concentrating minds to ensure that services are provided in the right place at the right time for children and adults.
I come to new clauses 7 and 9 last because they are about addressing what we might regard as the elephant in the room in any conversation about care services and the Bill’s noble intentions of improving the quality of care and of driving well-being into the heart of how care and support are delivered. The new clauses raise interconnected questions about the future funding of care and support, and about the independent nature of our health and care systems. Social care has for far too long—for decades—been the poor relation to health in decisions about public expenditure. Today’s funding challenges are chronic and are not simply the result of deficit reduction.
New clause 9 reflects the concern of a remarkable coalition of interests outside this place, including the Local Government Association, the Care and Support Alliance, hundreds of non-governmental organisations, directors of social services and chief executives, and many more besides. They all want to serve notice on the Government that they are concerned about the serious impact that the continuing pressure on local government spending will have on the ability of councils to deliver the care and support that everybody in this House wants to be delivered under the Bill. The picture is complex. Different councils are coping differently—some are overspending their care budgets and some are underspending them—but the trend is clear, despite the extra £7.2 billion that was allocated in the 2010 spending review and the transfer of money as part of the better care fund in the most recent spending review.
New clause 9 simply provides for an assessment to be made and signed off by the programme board that oversees the implementation of the Bill. It is not an unreasonable request that we check that the sums add up and that the money is sufficient to deliver what the Bill is about. I hope that the Minister will reassure us about how transparent that process will be. Impact assessments are one thing; this process would be another. I think that it would provide considerable reassurance to those who will have the job of implementing the legislation.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
I apologise for breaking the right hon. Gentleman’s flow. I agree with virtually everything that he has said. On the need to ensure that the Bill does everything that it says on the tin, may I draw attention to the fact that when I met my constituent, Jason Roche, who is very active in the Royal National Institute of Blind People, he pointed out that 43% of blind and partially sighted people in England have lost access to adult social care services since 2005. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the Bill must address the needs of working-age adults who suffer from disabilities?
Paul Burstow
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He makes an important point. If one looks at the trends, one sees that there is no doubt that there are questions to be asked about why some people are not receiving the service that one would expect. Some of that—although I do not pretend that this covers anywhere near all of it—can be explained by the changes to the way in which services are organised. Some of it can be explained by the need to do more to re-able people and to enable them to maintain their independence. I do not say that to evade the question. That is why I have put new clauses 7 and 9 before the House. I genuinely think that whoever is in government in future will have to have a much more systematic approach to making decisions about how we meet demand.
That brings me on to new clause 7, which simply says that the Government should take a longer-term view. It states that every five years, the Government should look 20 years forward and take an independent assessment of the future demand for care and health services. That could be done by the Office for Budget Responsibility. It could provide modelling for the whole health and social care system that looks at the impact on demand, technology, demography and health status, and at the balance between all those factors. It could also look at the interactions between health and care, primary and secondary care, physical and mental health, and treatment and prevention. That would finally implement a recommendation that was made by Derek Wanless in his review for the Government in 2000. That is supported by the King’s Fund, which has suggested much the same thing.
In Committee, neither the Government nor the Opposition were able to make any funding commitments about part 1 of the Bill. I entirely understand why that is the case. However, we know that as the eligibility criteria are drawn more tightly, more people are excluded from help. In the long run, that does not save money, but shunts the costs. It pushes people away from living an independent life and towards a life of dependency. I hope that all parties will, in the end, sign up to something like new clause 7 as a good part of the future sound governance of our health and social care system. I hope that the Minister will support that.
I apologise to the House for speaking at such length, but I have put forward a number of issues that I hope will provide a framework for debating this important set of reforms. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)
We are discussing a huge number of new clauses and amendments, and I will try to keep my comments brief to allow Back Benchers on both sides time to speak. I want to start with our new clauses 17 and 18, which deal with the critical issue of linking the quality of care with standards in the care work force. New clause 17 would require the Secretary of State to review the economic and financial factors affecting the employment of care sector workers, including their recruitment, training, employment and retention, and the extent to which the policies of care providers were making it more or less likely that the aims of the Bill were being achieved.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
The Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Bill is going through the Welsh Parliament. My party tabled an amendment to the Bill that would have prohibited the use of zero-hours contracts in the care sector in Wales, but the Labour Government there voted against it. How disappointed is the hon. Lady with her colleagues in Wales?
Liz Kendall
I am sure that my colleagues in the Welsh Assembly want to do everything they can to improve care and support. Today we are discussing the care sector in England, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will give his support to what we are proposing.
Liz Kendall
I am really sorry, but I want to make a bit more progress. I have a lot of new clauses to get through, and Back Benchers have also tabled new clauses and amendments.
We also know that many care workers do not even get the minimum wage at the end of the week, because they are not paid for their travel time, among other things. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs recently undertook an evaluation of minimum wage enforcement in the social care sector. It found that a staggering half of all care providers had failed to pay the minimum wage to at least one of their employees, yet despite Ministers’ insistence that such people will be named and shamed, not a single provider in the care sector has so far been identified.
We need to look at all those employment issues, which I think have a fundamental impact on the quality of care. If the Bill is to promote well-being, shift services towards prevention and improve standards, we must get to grips with those issues; otherwise, it will not work. New clause 17 would require the Secretary of State to conduct an overall review of the economic and financial factors affecting employment, publish the results and consult on the findings.
Mr Redwood
I quite agree that we need a high quality work force who are well trained and supported, but if the review concludes that they are not, is the hon. Lady saying that controls should be imposed on local authorities from the national level?
Liz Kendall
If the right hon. Gentleman reads our new clause 18, he will see what our approach is. Local councils commissioning social care and having to fulfil their obligations under the Bill will need to look at employment terms and conditions. We have tabled the new clause because unfortunately the Government are removing the Care Quality Commission’s role in assessing how well councils are commissioning services, which I think is a mistake.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
Given the point my hon. Friend has just made, does she agree that it is all the more important that councils up and down the country follow the lead that Labour Wirral has shown in sticking to the principles of Unison’s ethical care charter, which tries to rid us of 15-minute appointments and limit zero-hours contracts?
Liz Kendall
I know about the approach that has been taken in Wirral and think that it is an excellent example. If we kept the CQC’s role in assessing how well councils are commissioning services, that is just the sort of thing that it would be able to spread. It is a real problem that that role is being removed. We will come later to our amendments that seek to return it to the CQC.
I will now turn to a group of new clauses on how better to identify and support carers. They stand in the name of Opposition Front Benchers, but really they are the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), who has made sterling efforts in this regard. We have tabled them to give carers the focus and attention they deserve. They pick up on some of the points that the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) made. New clause 19 would ensure that all health bodies have effective procedures in place to identify people who are or are about to become carers and ensure that they get the help and advice they need. New clause 20 would require local authorities to take all reasonable steps to ensure that schools in their area identify young carers and put support in place. New clause 21 would require universities and colleges to do the same.
As the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam said, family carers—unpaid family members looking after the people they love—are the absolute backbone of our care system. They need and deserve more support. They are looking after their relatives because they want to, but they really need help. One in five family carers provide more than 50 hours of care every single week, and their own health suffers as a result. One in three have to give up work or reduce their hours, which means their income suffers and the cost to the taxpayer goes up.
The Bill puts in place welcome new rights for carers, building on the approach taken by the previous Labour Government, but they will be meaningless if carers are not identified in the first place. Many carers do not actually come into contact with local authorities. Macmillan Cancer Support has made a powerful case, showing that 95% of the over 900,000 carers of people with cancer in England have not received a carer’s assessment—only one in three of them have even heard of it. That is because they are mostly in touch with the health system. Unfortunately, hospitals and GPs still do far too little to identify carers of people who have cancer and other conditions, such as stroke and heart disease. I understand that GPs identify only around 7% of carers, and other health professionals, particularly in hospitals, identify only one in 10. We need clear duties on those bodies and proper processes in place, because too often at the moment there is just a tick-box approach. I recently had to move GP practice, and the form I filled out contained two pages on how much alcohol I drank, which was welcome, and a little box that asked, “Are you a carer?” I knew what that meant—but did it mean a paid care worker, or a health care worker? That is not good enough and needs to be thought through.
I also stress the need to do far more to identify young carers, who we know can see their lives and life chances suffer because of what they do to help look after sick or disabled parents. Many schools might not understand if kids are not doing their homework or not turning up on time because of their responsibilities. If young carers are lucky enough to get to university or college, they may find their studies hard because they are travelling to and from home to try to help support their loved ones. We believe there should be clear duties on those bodies to identify young carers.
New clauses 22, 23 and 24 are about getting people the right financial advice—an issue we discussed a lot in Committee. The Bill introduces a new and complicated system of social care funding with the so-called cap on care costs and new deferred payment schemes. It is complicated and I have lost track of the number of times people have said to me, “Well, it’s okay because at least my care costs will be capped at £72,000 now”, and I have to go through the process of explaining to them that that is not actually the case. People are unaware of the new system, and if they are looking at financial products to help them cope with later costs, they need decent financial advice.
Currently, financial advisers must have studied a range of different financial and regulatory subjects, and they must sign up to a statement of professional standing and a code of ethics and conduct. Has the Minister talked to the Financial Conduct Authority about whether the training of financial advisers should change as a result of the Bill? Is he confident that all financial advisers can give people advice about the products they might want to take out to protect themselves against future costs, on the basis of the Bill?
I am concerned that unless people get high quality, proper financial advice, we could be in for another mis-selling scandal because the issue is complicated. People will have to figure out how much their average local authority rate will be for their area in five, six or seven years’ time, and how different that will be from what private providers charge. Will people’s care needs enable them to start counting towards the cap on care costs if they are not defined as “substantial”, as under current eligibility criteria? I would struggle to figure out all those finances, and we must ensure that financial advisers are properly trained.
New clause 22 states:
“The Financial Services Consumer Panel at the Financial Conduct Authority”
should publish an annual report on the
“availability, quality…and effectiveness of financial advice”
available to care users and their families. New clause 23 states that the FCA should consider raising the level of qualifications that financial advisers must have. We must ensure that people get high quality financial advice so that they are not mis-sold any products.
We also want much greater efforts to raise public awareness of the new capped cost model introduced by the Bill. Under the Bill, local authorities have a duty to raise awareness, but new clause 24 would make that much stronger and require them
“to prepare, publish, consult on and implement”
a proper plan for raising awareness among their local residents. That is important so that people know about the new system and what it means for them.
I support new clause 11, which would ensure that all users of publicly funded or arranged care have direct protection under the Human Rights Act 1998. Under the law as it stands, the fundamental protection and access to individual redress offered by the Act are not applied equally in all care settings. In the other place, Lord Low tabled the former clause 48, which sought to close that loophole. There was a long discussion on it in Committee—the clause was passed in the House of Lords but the Government voted to remove it in Committee. The Minister’s argument was that it went too far, because it would mean that the Human Rights Act applied to entirely privately funded and arranged care. He also claimed that the clause was not needed because the CQC could deal with the problems.
Liz Kendall
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will let me finish this point.
For working-age disabled people, the level at which the eligibility criteria are set is crucial and could mean the difference between being able not just to get access to training and a job but to spend time with their family or go out into their community—things that we take for granted. As hon. Members know, Scope and other organisations have warned that the Bill could risk shutting more than 100,000 disabled people out of the system, with all the human and economic costs that that entails.
The Minister will know that in Committee many hon. Members cited the economic modelling that has been done by organisations such as Deloitte, which shows that shifting the focus of investment and resources up front can save more money further down the line. The Deloitte modelling predicts that for every £1 invested in care for disabled people with moderate needs, savings of £1.30 per person are created. It predicts £700 million of savings for central Government from helping disabled people and their family carers to get work, and £570 million of savings to local NHS and local council services by avoiding the use of more expensive residential and crisis care and by reducing the need for more expensive medical care.
Such a long-term approach, whereby we assess the true costs and benefits over a longer term, is a good framework for making decisions about where priorities lie—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. Before the shadow Minister considers taking further interventions, she may not have realised that although the House appreciates that she is making some important points on a complex matter, she has spoken for some 24 minutes. She will not be aware, but I am, that a very large number of colleagues wish to speak in this debate and there is a limited time, so she might consider bringing her remarks to a close.
Liz Kendall
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have two more paragraphs. I agreed that I would speak for 25 minutes, so at 24 minutes I am almost in.
New clause 9 would help secure that shift in approach. I ask hon. Members to consider the new clause seriously because we need to introduce the up-front prevention, help and support, which requires a change in the way we look at the costs and benefits in the system.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. Before I call anyone from the Back Benches, let me say that the shadow Minister has been most courteous in bringing her remarks to a conclusion when I indicated that that might be a good idea. It would also be a good idea, if Members wish to be courteous to their colleagues, if they would limit their remarks to some five minutes. That way everyone will get to speak. If anybody speaks for more than 10 minutes, I will remind them of the fact.
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
I am not quite sure who to be bad-tempered with. As the House knows, I am not characteristically bad-tempered, but I think my bad temper should probably be directed at the usual channels, given that the timetable motion went through on the nod. We have to deal with 21 new clauses and 20 amendments on an important Bill in two hours, which by my calculation allows three minutes per clause or amendment. The hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) spoke perfectly reasonably, given the number of amendments that have been tabled, but it is impossible to do justice to all this in two hours. The usual channels should bear in mind that some of us feel rather bad-tempered about the time provision. These things, as we all know, are agreed between the usual channels; it is not one side or the other that is responsible.
I wish to speak briefly about new clause 3. The Bill does fantastic things for carers, and I think it would be a real tragedy if, once the Bill completes its passage, carers or their advocates felt that it was a missed opportunity. I shall not repeat what my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) said. The Minister will doubtless say that clause 6 and the duty to co-operate deal with this point. Clearly, the duty to co-operate is very important for local authorities and the NHS. In the past, GPs may not have sought to identify carers as well as they could because they did not think there was much they could do for them. Now they will be able to ensure that there is a carer’s assessment. If the Minister intends to resist new clause 3, could he seek to ensure that we have statutory guidance for the NHS on the services that it should provide for carers?
I fully understand that for those aged over 75 the aim will be to have named clinicians, and those clinicians should, as part of their duty, ensure that carers are identified, but of course many carers, including young carers, are under the age of 75. It would be a real pity if the Bill missed this opportunity on carers. If we could have some statutory guidance on what the Minister, the Department and all of us expect the NHS to do to identify carers, we can then have a quick rendition of the “Hallelujah Chorus” and I will not be so grumpy.
Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
I shall do my best not to be grumpy and to be as quick as the right hon. Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry). I wish to speak in support of new clauses 9 and 19. New clause 9 has support across the breadth of organisations from the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services to the Care and Support Alliance. It makes fundamental good sense, when setting up a new system, to have the ability to have an annual report about whether there is sufficient money in the system. Whichever Government are in charge, we need to know that. We are in danger of willing the ends but not the means for social care, and we have to make sure that this issue is kept under close review.
We all support the two fundamental principles of the Bill, which are about promoting individual well-being and moving towards a more preventive system. Those are commendable and high ideals, but if we do not have the funding in the system to be able to deliver them, the Bill will not achieve the potential that we all know is there.
I spoke on Second Reading about transformation, and I look forward to welcoming the Minister to Salford on Wednesday to show him how we are transforming the system for dementia care in the city by bringing together £97 million of our total health and social care budgets to try to squeeze every bit of impact out of every last penny to give better care for people with dementia. I hope he will be impressed, but more than that I hope he will help us to do this with his better care fund. That fund should be used for the transformation of our services at a time of austerity when we need more money in the system.
The second part of the new clause is about having a five-yearly review of eligibility criteria, which is essential—to be frank, I would like to see that happen more often than every five years. Eligibility criteria are now set at “substantial” instead of “moderate”, which means that in Salford 1,000 fewer families are being helped, and the heartache and misery that that causes are enormous. It also goes against the second fundamental principle of the Bill. If we do not have eligibility criteria at the right level, how can we transform the system to be preventive? If we only pick up people when they are in crisis, they are escalated into the acute sector, which costs a fortune. If we invest in lower level community-based interventions by social enterprises and voluntary groups, we can save money in the acute sector.
Meg Munn
Does my right hon. Friend agree that even when people’s needs are substantial, they are often not getting the support they need because the local authorities are not recognising that low level services, such as shopping and cleaning, help to support the care that is being provided by families? The Government need to have clear guidance on this.
Hazel Blears
My hon. Friend, as ever, makes an extremely worthwhile and practical point. Simply having the words in statute does not always portray the real position on the ground. A small intervention can often help to stop things becoming a crisis.
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
My amendments 27 and 28 are on safeguarding. Clause 42 contains a raft of measures that will go some way to enhancing the powers and role of the authorities in dealing with disturbing and worrying cases of abuse or neglect, which we hear about all too often when it comes to the care of vulnerable adults.
Amendment 27 relates to the definition of abuse in clause 42(3), which rightly makes reference to financial abuse. We are all aware of the rising phenomenon of financial abuse, where older people and those with learning difficulties have been preyed on, sometimes by their own family, for financial gain. My worry is that, while a distinct reference to financial abuse is welcome, there is a danger of creating an imbalance that will make other forms of abuse less relevant or important.
Statistics from the Health and Social Care Information Centre on the number of safeguarding referrals in the last year for which records are available show that the most common causes or types of abuse are physical abuse and neglect. My concern is that they do not appear in the Bill. It would perhaps be better to have an amendment, along the lines of the one I have tabled, that acknowledges different types of abuse and refers the matter to guidance that could be carefully and comprehensively drafted, so that practitioners can be safe in the knowledge that one type of abuse does not take precedence over another. This is an issue that has been raised in the other place and in Committee here. The Government have said they are concerned that defining abuse further might restrict the scope of a local authority’s duty to inquire, but my concern, and the concern of organisations such as Mencap, is that not having a reference to other forms of abuse might lead to an undue focus on financial abuse only, to the detriment of others.
Amendment 28 would place a duty on relevant partners, such as those providing care and support, to notify the local authority if they believe an adult is at risk of abuse. It is clear that local authorities cannot be expected to identify all types of abuse themselves, or to rely on the good will of other people or agencies. If relevant partners, including providers of care, had a duty to report that adults were at risk of abuse, that would make their responsibilities clear, and would help to secure greater transparency. I, and others, fear that leaving the matter to guidance would pose a risk that the duty would not be taken seriously enough. A legal duty for relevant partners has already been introduced in Wales, and the amendment seeks to mirror that.
We are familiar with the existing framework relating to adult safeguarding boards and the joint agency working that takes place, but concerns that arise day in, day out are not always reported, and, sadly, there is also under-reporting of concerns from hospitals. While there are many examples of local excellence in the development of safeguarding procedures, I fear, as do others, that there will be too much of a patchwork and not enough of a national framework. It is essential for us to know, wherever we live, that the standards of reporting and obligations placed on agencies and other partners to make that all-important report about abuse are consistent. Because adults are often much more isolated than children and young people who are surrounded by a framework, a duty to report when an adult is at risk could be considered to be more crucial.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
I shall speak briefly about new clauses 17 and 18 and amendments 31 to 33, which stand in my name.
New clauses 17 and 18 go to the heart of the social care profession. They say a great deal about how much we value the care of vulnerable and older people. New clause 17 would reveal the full extent of poor employment practices in the care sector, including zero-hours contracts and failure to pay the national minimum wage. Good social care thrives on the provision of well-trained, motivated staff who can develop proper relationships with the people whom they visit, but we know that that does not happen. According to the Social Care Workforce Research Unit, more than 150,000 people in the care work force earn less than the national minimum wage. Poor pay not only affects employee morale, but makes it difficult to attract skilled staff and encourages high staff turnover. None of that is good for service users, who need to have confidence and trust in the people who visit them.
The Government promised to get tough on employers who do not pay the national minimum wage, but so far only five employers have been “named and shamed”. Not one of them was in the care sector, which is worrying given how widespread we know the problem to be. New clause 17 would give a clear picture of the state of the sector, and would create a foundation for possible action.
New clause 18 would create a requirement for local authorities to consider how the employment practices of providers they commission might affect the quality of care. The aim is to build checks into the system so that standards are not allowed to slip. Training is a particular concern: more than 40% of respondents to a Unison survey reported that they had not been given specialised training to deal with the specific needs of clients with conditions such as dementia. Nearly a quarter reported that they were required to carry out medical procedures or give medicine to clients when they had not been trained to do so. More worryingly, a care worker who spoke to me recently told me that it was standard practice in the agency to leave tablets for clients by their bedsides to save the cost of another visit later in the evening to ensure that the client had taken his or her medication. That means, essentially, that hundreds of vulnerable, confused people who are not in control of their own care are left to control their own medicine.
The issue of 15-minute care visits has rightly attracted considerable attention, not just because they often make the practicalities of care impossible, but because they eliminate almost any chance for a relationship to develop between carer and client. An under-reported crisis among older people is growing isolation, and the carer may be the only person to whom many of them speak on most days. That has real, measurable impacts on people’s well-being, and is made worse by those flying visits. New clause 18 would force authorities to take such factors into account when commissioning services.
A care worker on a zero-hours contract told me that it was common for 15 or 30- minute visits to be scheduled back to back, which gave him time to do only the bare minimum. He had no time to speak to his clients, or to go the extra mile to keep them comfortable. He often drops in on them in his spare time just to ensure that they are okay. On one occasion, he arrived at a client’s home to find that the man had fallen and needed to go to hospital. The man asked whether the care worker—a constituent of mine—could go with him, and my constituent rang his employers to see whether that was possible. He was told that it was not. It is extremely worrying to see cases in which social care has lost that basic element of compassion. Employers must be required to build some kind of flexibility into their practices.
My own experience in adult social care has convinced me that a general duty of well-being is simply not enough.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
Because of the local government cuts, people are no longer thinking about that general duty of well-being. What is almost a “something is better than nothing” attitude has crept in and replaced concern for the well-being and care of the individual, who should be receiving quality care.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I entirely agree. The budgets of council adult social care departments are now so stretched that they fill a gap wherever they can, as cheaply as they can.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
The hon. Lady is making an excellent point. In new clause 32, I propose that the Secretary of State should undertake a review of care standards, including hourly pay and other kinds of remuneration for home care workers. Does she agree that unless we have decent national standards for visiting times and remuneration, we shall be faced continually with a race to the bottom?
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I apologise for not having read the hon. Gentleman’s new clause. I have been focusing on my own new clauses and amendments, but I will look at his new clause at a later stage.
Amendments 31 to 33 would establish firm time scales for assessments and reviews of service users’ care needs. During the Bill’s passage so far, the Opposition have repeatedly tried to raise the issue of the funding gap in adult social care, which threatens some of the positive changes that the Bill would bring about. In my constituency, our local authority has been forced to make £24.3 million-worth of savings, with predictable consequences. One of the consequences for local authorities has been a decline in the regularity of assessments and reviews. I have spoken to people whose assessments have been grossly delayed; I have also visited care homes in which some residents have not been reviewed for up to three years, during which time their needs may have changed dramatically and their support may have become inadequate.
It is easy to understand how that happens. Under-resourced departments must set priorities, and routine steps such as the reviewing of someone’s care plan are often at the bottom of the list because there is no pressure for them to be taken in a timely way. However, those steps are very important, because they identify changes in a person’s condition which, if ignored, might lead them to a crisis point. The amendments would reverse a worrying trend which has seen delayed assessments rise significantly since 2010, when 18.7% of new clients waited four weeks or more for an assessment. By 2011-12, the latest year for which figures are available, the figure had risen to 22.7%. In some individual local authorities, the change is even more worrying. In one authority, the number of new clients waiting to be assessed jumped from 12.6% to 70.7% between 2010 and 2012. It is important to remember that those are not just percentages, but represent vulnerable people whose needs are not being met.
In Committee, the Minister said that he was concerned about assessments being rushed to meet the timetable, and that a simplistic time scale would not be tailored to meet individual needs. I agree that that is of concern, but it should not be necessary for the time scale drawn up by the Secretary of State to be a “one size fits all”. The timetable for more complex cases could take into account the more complex nature of the assessment and allow more time for completion. It would be much more dangerous to have no benchmark at all and for those people to have their assessments delayed and their needs not met. The amendments would improve the situation for people with more complex needs, for whom putting support in place quickly is most important.
Mr Ward
I will try to hit my five-minute target by excluding a lot of other comments, including on the eligibility criteria, which I have spoken about at length on other occasions.
The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) effectively made the case about the false economy, whereby the criteria are at the wrong level and people’s conditions deteriorate, so they and the state face a greater cost. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) referred to the provision to identify patients who are or may become carers. I am concerned about carers who end up becoming patients or needing care because of a lack of support. We need to consider that, too.
I will confine my comments to new clauses 7 and 9. Without those, the rest is almost irrelevant. My right hon. Friend referred to the elephant in the room. An elephant in the room is something we are vaguely aware of; we know it is there but we are not prepared to talk about it. Out there, people are talking about the crucial issue of whether these services can be afforded. So much in the Bill is so good, but we are in danger of casting doubt on the deliverability of what we know is good and on whether it can be implemented.
As is often the case, it is no use relying on the good old principle of localism and local authorities making the decision to pick up these things. There is a difference between localism that is freedom and localism that is an abrogation of responsibility by Government to fund services during a national crisis. If we get that wrong, we will simply give local authorities the freedom to fail. We need to ensure that that does not happen.
The sad thing is that, although there is so much good will out there for the Bill— we are in grave danger of not responding to the comments of the voluntary and community sector and the public sector generally on the principles of the Bill and many of its provisions—there is a suspicion that, at the end of the day, we cannot deliver on it. The question is why would we not support new clauses 7 and 9. We are asking for assurances, not for additional money, because the truth is we do not really know. We are asking for assurances through a review. We are asking not for additional funding but for a commitment to a review.
I was going to give a grand finale about the voyage into the unknown, but it is not unknown, is it? We know that huge demands will be placed on the system and that that will have grave implications for many people who are receiving and providing care. We know that that is on the way. We think we have a system in place through the Bill that will enable us to deliver on that. The big question is not an elephant in the room. The groups that I am working with on the Bradford Cares projects, Age Concern, Mencap, Scope and the Bradford and District Disabled People’s Forum say that this is good and they like so much of the Bill, but they raise their eyebrows and say, “Will the funding be there?” That is the big question that is asked over and again. Through new clauses 7 and 9, we can at least give them some faith that we recognise that it is a big issue and that we are seeking to identify and meet our responsibilities to fund what we all want to do and see.
Barbara Keeley
In introducing new clause 3, the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) said how he felt that the NHS institutionally must change to identify and support carers. Of course I agree with that. My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) introduced new clauses 19, 20 and 21. She mentioned my private Member’s Bill, which I feel is having its last outing today in these new clauses; it proposed measures on the identification of carers. I want to touch on how long these issues have been around.
Eleven years ago, I completed a project on identifying and providing support for carers and co-wrote a report on that. The report made recommendations to Government, NHS bodies, GPs and their teams on how important it was to identify and support carers. That project mapped 36 primary care support initiatives for carers run by the Princess Royal Trust for Carers. We are talking about a long time ago. We felt that the role of carers, including their contribution to the work of the NHS, had generally been under-recognised and under-valued.
Through the 1990s, to the point where I wrote that report, we had carers assessments following the excellent Carers (Recognition and Services) Act 1995, introduced by Malcolm Wicks. That was strengthened by the Carers and Disabled Children Act 2000, which enhanced the carer’s right to an assessment. We even had in 1999 standard 6 of the national service framework for mental health, which said:
“all individuals who provide regular and substantive care for a person on the Care Programme Approach should have an assessment of their caring, physical and mental health needs, repeated on at least an annual basis”.
Even at that point, the Department of Health said that the implementation of the carers’ right to an assessment four years in was
“patchy. Assessments are not always carried out. Some carers are offered very sensitive practical and emotional support. But others receive very little, or no help”.
Fast-forward 15 years to the Care Bill, and carers are still in a similar situation. The identification of carers and referring them to sources of advice and support is still not happening on an adequate scale, and we have had all that legislation and good practice. Carers UK has told us that two thirds of carers that it surveyed said that, although their GP knew they had caring responsibilities, their GP did not give them any extra help. We have heard examples of what that can mean.
Carers week is in June, and we look forward to that. We know that in that week we meet carers at events. There is a common theme: they tell us repeatedly they are not getting advice and information to help them care. They can be carers of people with cancer, carers for people with terminal illness, carers of people with Parkinson’s or of people with dementia. Does the Minister want to start changing that for carers week this year? Does he want to go along to carers week events and have carers start to say to him, “I have been identified by my GP and my GP does recognise my caring role”? I hope he does, because I have heard so many people say how much it would have meant to them and what a difference it would have made to their caring if their GP had recognised it.
Even for conditions such as Parkinson’s, only one in 10 carers has been offered an assessment. These are people who are caring very often more than 50 hours a week, and, as a disease such as Parkinson’s progresses, up to 24 hours a day. They and the people caring for somebody who has had a stroke or who has dementia are the people who really need advice, support and breaks. These are the reasons we must support new clauses 3, 19, 20 and 21.
The Care Bill puts great emphasis on carers assessments rather than on the identification of carers, and I introduced a private Member’s Bill on that in September 2012. The clauses in that Bill, which we see again today, would have ensured that NHS bodies had procedures in place to identify carers and to promote their health and well-being and ensure they receive information and advice. I believe the key reason in identifying carers should be because we have a concern for their health, particularly those with the heaviest caring commitments. That is one in five of all carers, and that is more than 1 million people, which is just too many.
Those caring for more than 50 hours a week are twice as likely to suffer ill health, particularly those caring for a person with dementia or stroke. My right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) has just talked to us meaningfully and movingly about the impact of that caring role on her family. We want early identification and support for those carers so they can maintain their health and manage and sustain their caring role. I agree with my right hon. Friend that they should be fast-tracked for appointments. As hopefully we move towards integration and, beyond that, whole-person care, local authorities cannot be expected to act alone to identify and support carers.
As has been touched on in this debate, we also have to face the fact that the number of people receiving social care services is shrinking. In Salford this year, because of budget cuts, 1,000 people are going to lose their eligibility for social care services and 400 people who would have become eligible for care will not become eligible. The unpaid carers in those families will be taking on that substantial burden, yet, sadly, the GPs and doctors around them will not identify them, will not help them, will not make sure they get advice and support.
This Care Bill is the place to make the change, and I say to the Minister let us not wait another 15 years to make the change and place such a requirement on health bodies—and schools, universities, colleges and further education colleges in the case of young and student carers. Let them just have policies in place to identify carers and to provide support for them.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
I would like to speak briefly to new clauses 1, 26 and 9. I hope new clause 1 on the adult safeguarding access orders would rarely ever be necessary because, as the Minister knows, the vast majority of carers are out there day in, day out, night after night providing dedicated care, often at the expense of their own health. There is a tiny minority of people, however—and I am afraid I have met some of them—who are coercive, controlling and manipulative, particularly if there is money at stake. At the moment there is no right of entry even if other relatives or neighbours and friends have raised concerns, and even if clinicians have concerns. Of course in most cases a negotiation can take place and access can be gained, but very often that access is only with a rather controlling person in the room as well, and it can be very difficult to make a full assessment of capacity under those circumstances, as I am sure the Minister is aware. There are people who are at risk. We know that 29 local authorities have identified that there have been vulnerable adults for whom they have been unable to gain access.
New clause 1 is about stating that there needs to be a final backstop in circumstances where it is clear that the safeguarding of a vulnerable adult at risk is paramount. I know there are those who say we already have right of access under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, but unfortunately the bar is set too high and there is uncertainty about the ability to gain access. New clause 1 sets out very clearly the thresholds, and also the safeguards, because this is not about riding roughshod over individuals who do not wish to have a social worker entering their home. Instead it is about setting out the rights of an individual who may be under the control of a coercive third party. We need to have greater clarity and I hope the Minister will consider this new clause. Having a final backstop works well in Scotland; it is very rarely used but we need to have it in place as a final resort.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
I, too, have had experience of being in a police station, as a duty solicitor in my case, and therefore have seen for myself that the very last place these most vulnerable of people should be is a police station. Given that the Government have made commitments—indeed, financial commitments—on a diversion service, to ensure that the principle of diverting these vulnerable people is recognised, surely the next step is to support the principle of my hon. Friend’s new clause?
Dr Wollaston
I thank my hon. Friend for those comments and I welcome the mental health crisis care concordat, and what is being done to emphasise that prevention is by far the best way forward, but even with those prevention measures in place I think we would all accept there will still be circumstances where people will reach crisis, and unfortunately a police station is absolutely the last place anyone, let alone a child, would wish to be in crisis. In Devon and Cornwall alone, 27 children last year were taken to police cells for long periods of time. On three occasions those children were as young as 12 and 13. That is simply unacceptable. One of the reasons it is likely to continue is that there is no penalty currently for the NHS in continuing to use such facilities. It does not have to pick up any of the financial tab. That is putting enormous pressure on our police forces. They do not wish this to happen, of course. If we cannot at least have this sunset clause, which I think is eminently sensible, I hope the Minister will consider making sure that the NHS has to pay to use the police cells, and that there is a significant financial penalty, because that would be a driver. That would make it financially much more sensible for the NHS to put in place measures for these vulnerable people—who often have been found by the police at the point where they are about to take their own lives. It cannot be acceptable for this situation to continue.
Moreover, the variation in such use of police cells is extraordinary. There are some areas where that is not used at all and others where it is very heavily relied on. I hope the Minister will say in his response that he is prepared to consider a sunset clause, or at least a financial penalty, so we see drivers in place and we continue to move away from such a practice. However, I absolutely recognise the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) that prevention is far better, and I know all areas are working towards that and that the Minister fully supports it.
New clause 9 is an extraordinary measure that is widely welcomed because of the principles to which the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) referred about well-being and prevention. These are at the heart of the Bill and everybody welcomes them. However, I think the Minister recognises that there could be unintended consequences if we were to introduce many new statutory obligations without their being funded fully. As he will know, we have two tests—a needs test and a means test—for people to pass in accessing social care, and 88% of needs tests are now set at a substantial level, which has been quite a considerable change. There is also the means test, which stands at £23,250. On many occasions as a GP, I remember coming across the absolute shock encountered by people when they realised that they would get no help whatever.
The change under the Bill will be extraordinarily welcome, although we should be under no doubt about the burdens that it will place on local authorities, in particular in my area. Devon has the third oldest demographic in the country, but funding of local authorities for health care does not have sufficient emphasis on the age structure of the population. There will be great impact on Torbay and on other areas in Devon, such as my constituency.
New clause 9 is a sensible measure about how we plan for the future and make an appraisal of whether we are fulfilling the important provisions in the Bill, ensuring that we have sufficient resources directed towards prevention and well-being. I hope that the Minister will see the new clause as helpful and as one that will assist us in planning for the future.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I will speak to the amendments in my name. I share the view of the right hon. Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) that we should not have nodded the programme motion through blithely. Many of my constituents have contacted me about the Bill, because care in my area is on the edge of crisis, with the new threshold rolling it back for many people. That is why I support new clause 11; people need their human rights to be ensured in the Bill. New clause 2 is important, because we have a Children’s Commissioner and we need a commissioner for the elderly and other care services, so that there is someone to speak out for people. I support new clauses 7 and 9, because I agree that introducing legislation without funding is meaningless. We place local authorities in an impossible position, as they struggle to provide the services.
With regard to the work force, we need to ensure pay and adequate training, so that we fully professionalise the work force. In my area, we have a high turnover of care workers, which leads to distressing results. In one case, an elderly lady was burgled and on the next day a new carer came in, but she thought that she was being burgled all over again, because she did not recognise the person. That is the instability in the industry at the moment. That is why I support new clauses 17 and 18.
On the amendments in my name, new clause 31 is generated by one of my constituents called Jonathan Kay, who asked me to get the matter dealt with in the Bill. For many years, Jonathan has been funded by the local authority to employ a personal assistant to enable him to carry out his day-to-day tasks—he is a disabled person—but he has experienced serious problems with personal assistants in the past, even suffering abuse on more than one occasion. When employing personal assistants, Jonathan has found assessing the suitability of candidates extremely difficult, and he has not been able to obtain reliable recommendations from any public body, despite using public funds to employ them.
Part 3 of the Bill provides that the training and education —but no qualifications—of carers will be undertaken by Health Education England. The purpose of my new clause is for Health Education England to allow scope for the local education and training boards to do such work and to compile, publish and maintain a register of all persons who provide regulated social care for individuals under arrangements made by or paid for by a public authority. That would allow people such as Jonathan to access a list of trained professionals whom they can employ with confidence, we hope, in future.
With amendment 26, I am simply seeking to install into the Bill a provision on the right to live independently, as recommended by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, but dismissed by the Government. The Government might well have been concerned about the legal actions that were taking place with regard to the independent living fund, but the Committee’s report made its disappointment very clear that the Government had not taken the opportunity of the Bill to be explicit about their support for the convention on the rights of people with disabilities and article 19—“Living independently and being included in the community”—being a human right. It should therefore be included in the Bill. The Government have given assurances that the general direction of the Bill might achieve the same ends, but that is not good enough in that it does not enforce the rights in law.
My amendment 21 covers the same ground as new clause 15, so I will not dwell on it in any depth, but I will give an example. Whether with our parents or in our community, we all know about the uncertainty of charges for residential care. They cause real concern and anxiety among families. Yes, the ability of local authorities to negotiate rates influences the overall market, but that is why there is a need for some form of indicative price. A care funding calculator is used to set the care of people with learning difficulties, and that model has worked and saved public funds. We should at least be considering in the Bill that sort of process for care overall.
My proposals in amendment 20 would
“require the local authority, when carrying out the assessment, to capture an individual’s main and other disabling conditions”.
A whole group of organisations, including the Parkinson’s Disease Society, Sue Ryder, the Motor Neurone Disease Association, the Multiple Sclerosis Society, the Epilepsy Society, the Neurological Alliance and the Alzheimer’s Society, have all campaigned for this simple change in the assessment process, which merely requires local authorities to collect and record information about an individual’s main and other disabling conditions when they are conducting their social care assessments and arranging care packages. Why is that important? It is important for local authorities to be aware of the different conditions in their community, so that they can plan long-term services, but it is also important for us to be aware of the information nationally, so that care services and our investment can be planned in the long term. Taking that into account seems to be a minor amendment.
Amendment 22, which I also tabled, was proposed by the Royal National Institute of Blind People and lobbied for by a number of my constituents. In clause 76, the duty is placed on the local authority to establish
“a register of sight-impaired and severely sight-impaired adults who are ordinarily resident in its area.”
The existing provision relates only to adults and does not include children. My amendment simply ensures that the local authority is required to collect information on both adults and children. The reason for this is that, under the Children Act 1989, there is a requirement on local authorities to collect information with regard to blind and partially sighted children, but 20% of local authorities admitted failing to meet that legal requirement. Furthermore, 20% of local authorities have no register; three councils include just 1% of disabled children known to the authority on the registers; one in four authorities have whole registers with fewer than 2% of disabled children known to the council; and almost six in 10 councils include 10% or fewer of the disabled children. The RNIB therefore emphasises that in clause 76 we should place on local authorities a duty, when collecting information, to include children ordinarily resident in their area. Again it is the same mechanism; it is about the planning of services to ensure that they are properly invested in over the long term.
Overall, I welcome the Bill, but I fear that it will disappoint many as a result of the failure to address some of the considerable issues with regard to funding, rewards to the work force and professional training, and the appropriateness of the cap on costs.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to new clause 5, which is in my name. I thank the many Members who have supported the clause.
I have been pursuing the issue since 2011, initially on behalf of a constituent, a Mr Kenny, who suffered an injury when he was serving in the Army and is paralysed from the waist down. He originally lived in the London area, but his family is from Edinburgh and he wanted to move back to his family. For four years, he got absolutely nowhere, because neither authority would take responsibility for him being able to move. They argued backwards and forwards. Eventually, his family helped him to move physically, but for a period none of his care costs was being met, until Edinburgh relented and began to meet those costs. By that time, he had incurred quite a lot of debt.
I first raised the issue in 2011. The right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow), who was then the Minister, said that it should be covered in the White Paper, but when that came out it only related to portability of care within England and not to the devolved authorities. I kept raising the matter and I was assured that something would be in the Bill, but when it was published the measures related to the portability of residential care packages but not home care packages.
Grahame M. Morris
I echo the sentiments of other hon. Members about the lack of time we have been allocated. I appreciate that it is not your fault, Madam Deputy Speaker, but we have so much to get through and the shortage of time means that although I would like to speak in support of a raft of amendments and new clauses, I will limit my remarks to a discussion of new clause 9.
I am supportive of the Care Bill—changes that make care simpler and fairer are to be welcomed—but there are real concerns about the sustainability of the changes this Bill seeks to make. I do not doubt the integrity and good will of the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), but with all the good will in the world the proposals in the Bill can be implemented successfully only if they are properly funded.
Other hon. Members have raised concerns about the funding implications, and the original Dilnot report, one of the foundation stones of the Bill, made it clear that insufficient funding would hamper the effectiveness of any attempts to implement reforms, including the ones in this Bill, and that long-term social care funding will work only if the current crisis in social care is addressed first. So we must not forget that the success of the Bill will be jeopardised by laying reforms over a system that is underfunded. I do not have time to go into the figures, save to say that adult social care budgets alone have been reduced by £2.7 billion over the past three years—that amounts to 20% of average council budgets.
The impact of such cuts is compounded by rising demand resulting from demographic changes. It has been estimated that to meet the demographic pressures the nation needs to spend another £400 million a year. So local government has real concern that the implementation costs and ongoing running costs of the reforms being implemented through this excellent Bill have not been fully costed and will not be funded, other than as new burdens.
It is unacceptable—and it will damage public confidence and trust—to pretend that new standards will be able to be met if the resources are not in place to deliver them. That is why it is so important that an additional reporting mechanism is in place, such as new clause 9 would establish, to provide assurance that the social care system and reforms in the Bill are adequately funded. If the Government really intend the Bill to be their flagship piece of legislation on social care, we need to know that the numbers add up. Despite councils’ best efforts to protect front-line services, the reality of cuts on this scale has meant that adult social care has not been immune to their impact.
A number of hon. Members have indicated the scale of the impact in their own areas, but the eligibility criteria level for social care has risen dramatically across a range of authorities. It is unclear how the new eligibility threshold will work in practice, both in terms of the effectiveness of care that older and disabled people will receive and the impact that the threshold will have on local government finances. But it is a concern that an eligibility threshold set at “substantial” will, as the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) has said, fail to create a preventive care system—that is what we all want, along with well-being.
A failure to create a preventive care system could result in a false economy in the long term—my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) mentioned the figures from the Deloitte study. By not delivering the £1.2 billion of investment needed to lower the national eligibility threshold, central Government could be missing out on savings as great as £700 million. The well-being principle of the Bill will fail to become a reality as many old and disabled people will be ineligible to have their needs met, so it is important that the effectiveness and sustainability of the eligibility threshold is reviewed and changed when appropriate.
We have a unique opportunity to improve care, which is why I am in favour of establishing the joint care and support reform programme board set out in our new clause 9, which provides for a report on performance and implementation. A failure to do so could render the well-intentioned reforms in the Care Bill meaningless.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
Social services are under huge funding pressure, which has a knock-on effect on the NHS. New clause 9 highlights the crucial issue of funding and will contribute to addressing it. Just 10 days ago, I experienced at first hand those pressures on the NHS. I would have added my name to this new clause, but I was unable to be here because I spent three days in Southport and Formby district general hospital. I saw the pressures in the accident and emergency department resulting from beds not being available for the transfer of patients to the wards; the pressures arising from chronic staff shortages; the difficulty in helping patients to return home because of a lack of support in the community; and general practitioners sending older people to A and E with complex needs as there was a lack of other choice or care available. In large part, the cuts in social services funding meant that I saw all those things. Meanwhile, staff in the NHS are working incredibly hard, often doing double shifts to look after patients, for which I am extremely grateful, as are many others. I take this opportunity to thank them and everybody in the ambulance service for what they did for me and have done for many other people.
The evidence I collected during those three days shows just why we need to be confident that funding is in place. Unless the funding is adequate, both in social care and in the NHS, the challenges faced day by day, hour by hour in our NHS will grow worse. We need greater integration, provided through the all-party approach advocated by Sir John Oldham in the report by his Independent Commission on Whole Person Care. As the report says, practice needs to move on so that we can see more care provided at home, with professionals working closer together in the interests of the individual. The whole-person care approach would reduce the number of hospital admissions; it would keep more people at home for longer, reducing hospital admissions and avoiding the huge pressures that I witnessed. In the context of the Bill, we need to be confident that the funding is sufficient to deliver the new responsibilities, which is why we tabled new clause 9. I hope that Members will support it this evening.
New clause 19 calls for health bodies to promote the health and well-being of carers. As the independent commissions report states:
“Most care is delivered by people themselves and their families.”
That makes the health of carers vital. My dad cares for my mum, and his health is a major concern. Carers up and down the country face declining health as they care for loved ones. Caring for the people who care is also a vital aspect of care provision, and paid staff in the health and social care sectors are also carers. My right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) talked about priority treatment going to volunteer carers—family members, friends and other volunteers. We should also consider that approach for everyone who works in the NHS or in social care. If we read the new clause in its widest sense, we should consider paid carers too, be they in the NHS or in social care.
Some 1.3 million people work in the NHS, and 1.5 million in social care. We should promote the health of NHS and social care staff as well as that of unpaid carers who do a fantastic job up and down the country. I hope that new clauses 9 and 19 receive the support of the House.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)
I share the frustration of many Members at the shortness of time that we have had to discuss such important issues.
Part 1 of the Bill brings in a long overdue and fundamental reform of care and support. It has been brought before the House after around five years of one of the most collaborative processes ever used to develop legislation, and I am very proud of this historic set of reforms.
I hope to have time to explain Government amendments 1 to 7 and 14, relating to clause 123 on regulations, but before that I shall try to address some of the key points that have been made. I fear that I do not have time to do justice to all the points, but I shall do my best.
On new clause 1 on power of access, which was tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow), it is my view that there is no gap in powers that would prevent care or other professionals from accessing those in urgent need of assistance. I am not alone in that view. The Association of Chief Police Officers says:
“Powers of entry are provided to us under both common law and PACE and I am satisfied that these would afford us access to premises where vulnerable individuals are considered to be at risk.”
The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, which is an important organisation, agrees:
“We have no evidence that the proposed powers of entry would add significantly to the range of tools currently available to practitioners, rather we are concerned that this would encourage a coercive rather than negotiated approach to complex and difficult situations, and increase risk of harm or abuse. Any such power would not assist the complex next steps in assuring and supporting individuals, who have capacity, to stay safe.”
That view is confirmed by the chief social worker for adults, who said:
“An additional power of entry or access on its own would be insufficient, and indeed could make the situation worse.”
The inherent jurisdiction of the High Court to intervene provides a crucial final safety net. Beyond that, the critical thing is to issue, as we intend to do by the end of March, clear guidance on existing powers to ensure that all professionals working in this important area understand what powers they have available to them. I know that my right hon. Friend has been assiduous in pursuing that issue, and I am happy to involve him in the process of confirming those final guidelines that we intend to publish by the end of March.
On amendment 27 about the definition of abuse, the Joint Committee on the Draft Bill stated:
“Abuse is an ordinary English word, capable of being understood without being defined…to attempt an exhaustive definition always has the danger of omitting something which, as subsequent events make clear, should have been included.”
We agree and believe that the Bill is clear as drafted. Last week, I spoke to the all-party group, which is chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland). I promised to go away and look at the matter and to talk to officials, but I am absolutely satisfied that the plain English words are very clear. The explanatory notes will be expanded to ensure that it is made clear. The guidance and explanatory notes will both have legal force, and courts will use them to interpret the intentions of the Bill.
Turning to amendment 28, the overarching well-being principle applies to safeguarding duties. Where partners become aware of abuse or neglect, it is imperative that they act, and the guidance will be absolutely clear on that point.
On new clause 26, I completely agree that police cells are a totally inappropriate place for someone in a mental health crisis. The crisis care concordat, which, for the first time ever, sets standards of crisis care, lays out our clear expectation that the use of police cells will drop by half by 2014-15. However, that must only be a start. The Home Secretary announced last year that there will be a review of the operation of sections 135 and 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 on places of safety, and that is the right approach to take. However, I agree that we must end this awful practice of people ending up in police cells completely inappropriately.
I sympathise with new clause 11 on the Human Rights Act, but do not feel that it adds anything in terms of protection for individuals. None the less, I recognise the strength of feeling on the matter, so I expect that it will be discussed further in the final stages of the Bill’s passage in the other place. In the meantime, I am prepared to reflect on the points made and consider whether legislative clarification might be justified in order to make the Government’s position clear.
Paul Burstow
That is a helpful way forward, but I ask the Minister to say a little bit more about new clause 11 and the Human Rights Act issue.
Norman Lamb
I have already confirmed that we will return to the matter later in the process, and I hope that we will then end up in a satisfactory place.
Turning to new clauses 7 and 9 to which a number of hon. Members have spoken, the spending review considers spending pressures across adult care and support, the NHS and public health. In the current spending review period, we allocated significant additional funding to local authorities for adult care and support, including a transfer from the NHS of £1.l billion a year by 2014-15 to be spent on social care with a health benefit. That is not to say that I do not recognise how challenging the financial environment is for local authorities, but we know from figures provided by the local authorities themselves that the vast majority of cost savings have been achieved as a result of efficiencies and not of cutting services for people.
However, as the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) said in Committee, the answer is not just to throw more money at the system, but to look at how public funding is spent and to deliver a more radical reform of health and social care. That is why, in the spending review for 2015-16, we announced the better care fund, which is a £3.8 billion pooled budget for health and social care. That not only provides the resources needed to protect access to social care, but breaks absolutely new ground in establishing structures that will drive further and faster integration between health and social care.
As hon. Members have noted, the better care fund includes £135 million of additional funding for implementing the Bill in 2015-16. Some have argued that including that in the better care fund means that local authorities will face a choice between implementing the Bill and investing in integrated services. In my view, that is a false choice. On the contrary, our reforms are part of the same agenda, and we cannot afford to see those as separate issues. Both systems need to work more effectively together to help people live independently for longer.
Norman Lamb
I am conscious that I owe it to hon. Members to respond to all the issues that have been raised.
The reforms in the Bill to extend assessments and support for carers can play a big part in keeping people out of hospital. The spending review provided £335 million in 2015-16 to help local authorities’ transition to the capped cost system and to offer universal deferred payments. Locally, health and wellbeing boards have a statutory responsibility to analyse current and future health and care needs and to develop a strategy to address them. Given such an approach, there is no need for the proposed amendments.
Norman Lamb
I am sorry; I must ensure that I get through all the amendments.
On new clause 13, I am clear that the current lack of good information on deferred payment agreements is not acceptable, given the importance of the scheme. That is why we are working with national partners in local government and the National Association of Financial Assessment Officers to develop a range of questions that will improve and expand the data we already have. The new clause is therefore unnecessary as we already have plans under way to achieve a similar goal.
On new clause 4 on local authorities making “reasonable charges”, the Government’s proposal to set a clear amount beyond which a person’s income cannot be reduced is much clearer and provides stronger protection. I have written to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam and other Committee members on this subject, and I would be happy to share the letter with other Members. I have nothing to add to that analysis and do not agree that the new clause is required.
On amendment 21 and new clause 15, the Bill makes it clear that local authorities must work to maintain a sustainable market that delivers a wide variety of high quality services for people who need care and support in the local area. Local authorities’ own commissioning is an important part of this process. Additionally, local authorities will have to have regard to the well-being of individuals when commissioning services. Therefore, any local authority that commissions inappropriately short care visits or does not consider the actual cost of care when setting fee levels is highly unlikely to be fulfilling their duties. These matters will be set out fully in statutory guidance. It would not be appropriate to have a nationally set formula that would lead to standard rates or “tariff prices” for care and support, as this is best left to local negotiations in the open market.
On new clause 24, local authorities are already under a duty to work with their local clinical commissioning groups and others through the health and wellbeing boards to undertake joint strategic needs assessments and to develop joint health and well-being strategies. Statutory guidance published in March 2013 makes it clear that these must be published and have specific regard to
“what health and social care information the community needs, including how they access it and what support they may need to understand it”.
Awareness-raising will be an important part of the Bill’s implementation. The Department will co-ordinate involvement of wider interests, including local authorities and the private and voluntary sectors, to raise the public’s awareness of the new arrangements, specifically on the need for people to plan for care costs. We will add to what is already available to monitor the effectiveness of information and advice, public accessibility and public awareness.
On new clauses 22 and 23 about financial advice, the Financial Conduct Authority already has a responsibility to keep under review the financial advice market as regards how it is serving customers, and qualifications for advisers, and this includes those looking to fund long-term care costs. These requirements are published in FCA rules. Such an addition to the Bill would therefore be unnecessary.
I understand the intention behind new clauses 17, 18 and 32—it is to ensure fair payment for care sector workers. In response to the Cavendish review, statutory guidance for the Bill will include guidance to local authorities on commissioning services and arranging contracts that will explicitly require them to have regard to ensuring that provider organisations adhere to minimum wage legislation, including, crucially, the payment of travel time between social care visits. We are also working closely with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to ensure that the national minimum wage guidance is appropriate to the care sector. We have amended the Bill to enable specified bodies to provide training standards for groups of workers, initially focusing on health care assistants and social care support workers. This will form the core of the new care certificate.
New clause 31 is outside the remit of Health Education England, which has a delegated duty under the National Health Service Act 2006. The duty relates to education and training in relation to persons working, or considering working, in connection with the provision of services as part of the health service in England. The duty does not extend to regulated social care, which is taken to mean social care delivered by providers registered with the Care Quality Commission.
On new clause 5, given the inherent complexity presented by the different legislative frameworks operating in the different territories of the United Kingdom, we will look to develop principles on cross-border continuity of care that achieve the same practical effect as further legislation. I absolutely agree with the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) about the importance of this issue. We have started discussions with colleagues in the devolved Administrations and we will aim to publish the principles by November. I hope that that helps her.
On new clauses 3 and 19 about NHS work to identify and promote the health of carers, I can confirm that the guidance will absolutely reinforce the importance of co-operation between the NHS and local authorities on local authorities’ duty to identify carers. NHS England is developing its own action plan for identifying and supporting carers. In addition, our vision for out-of-hours hospital care, which will be published in April, will build on changes to the GP contract for 2014-15. All patients aged 75 and over will have a named accountable GP with responsibility for their care, and we will consider how we can extend this approach to all people with long-term conditions. The plan will emphasise the importance of GPs identifying carers and supporting them in their caring role by directing them to information, advice and support.
On new clauses 20 and 21, a legislative approach that compels schools, universities and colleges to identify young carers and student carers would not be in keeping with the Government’s drive to reduce burdens. The Department for Education has already been doing a lot in this regard, and it is now working with the National Governors Association in raising awareness in schools. The Department of Health has invested in many initiatives to help to identify and support young carers. We have trained over 150 school nurses as young carers’ champions. Along with other Departments, we will also explore the factors that are challenging in young adult carers’ transition from school to college or university. Along with ministerial colleagues, I will shortly write to Universities UK and the Association of Colleges to seek their engagement in this work.
Amendment 20, tabled by the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), is not required because the scope of the new powers in clause 12 already allows for the collection of such information if we choose to require it.
On amendments 31 to 33, we have carefully considered the issue of time frames in the care planning process, including reviews. On balance, we feel that a flexible approach is best. It is important for local authorities to retain the ability to be proportionate to the needs to be met. For some people—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The Minister must be heard. Hon. Members are being rude in speaking.
Norman Lamb
Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker.
For some people, the care planning process may be relatively simple, but for people with complex needs it is important that the plan is carefully produced and agreed with the person in order to meet their care and support needs effectively and appropriately.
Norman Lamb
I do not have time, I am afraid.
We will set out in guidance best practice on conducting care plans. I hope that that reassures the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck).
Amendment 26 is unnecessary because the concepts of independent living and inclusion in the community are already core parts of the duty to promote individual well-being. We have merely captured them in more concrete ways rather than using those terms, which are too unclear, as the Law Commission agreed.
Schedule 2 to the Children Act 1989 requires local authorities to keep registers of sight-impaired children, and amendments 22 to 25 would only duplicate that. We have committed to explicitly reinforcing this duty in the forthcoming code of practice for children and young people with special educational needs or disabilities.
I turn briefly to the Government amendments. Amendments 1 and 2 simply clarify the scope of the regulation-making powers as set out in the other place by Lord Howe, the Under-Secretary with responsibility for quality. They ensure that regulations can specify where local authorities do have the power to be more generous and contribute to the costs of an adult with resources above the financial limit, as well as where they do not.
Amendment 3 allows regulations to specify where certain costs do not have to form part of the personal budget and thus do not count towards the cap on care costs. It has always been the intention that some provision, such as reablement, should be a universal, free service and therefore should not be incorporated in the personal budget. Such exemptions will not apply to general care and support that a local authority can charge for.
Amendments 4 and 5 correct small drafting omissions in clause 34. Amendment 6 will enable us to make provision in the regulations for the appeals system for the investigation of the appeals body itself—for example, regarding allegations of maladministration. Amendment 14 sets out that, as per usual practice, we will use affirmative regulations if we need to amend primary legislation as part of the appeals regulations.
Finally, on amendment 7, the feedback from local authorities is that it would make sense for them to have flexibility to be able to delegate functions relating to direct payments if they so wish. We agree and have accordingly tabled an amendment to remove the prohibition related to that.
Paul Burstow
I give notice that I would like to press new clause 9 to a vote and beg leave to withdraw new clause 1.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 10—Exercise of functions—
‘When exercising functions under section 31 (Urgent procedure for suspension, variation etc.) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008, the Care Quality Commission may not take account of its functions under section 83 (Trust special administration: appointment of administrator) of this Act.’.
New clause 12—CQC duty to support integration of social and health care—
‘In exercising the functions and duties set out in section 90 (Performance ratings), the Commission must act always to require, enable and encourage the provision of health services in ways that support and facilitate the functions and duties of—
(a) local authorities set out in section 3 (Promoting integration of care and support with health services etc.) of this Act,
(b) the NHS Commissioning Board set out in section 23(1) 13N (The NHS Commissioning Board: further provision) of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, and
(c) clinical commissioning groups set out in section 26 (14Z1) (Clinical commissioning groups: general duties etc.) of the Health and Social Care Act 2012
where it considers that this—
(i) improve the quality of those services (including the outcomes that are achieved from their provision),
(ii) reduce inequalities between persons with respect to their ability to access those services, or
(iii) reduce inequalities between persons with respect to the outcomes achieved for them by the provision of those services.’.
New clause 27—Corporate responsibility for neglect—
‘(1) This section applies where a person registered under Chapter 2 of Part 1 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (a “registered care provider”) in respect of the carrying on of a regulated activity (within the meaning of that Part) has reasonable cause to suspect that an adult in their care is experiencing, or at risk of, abuse and neglect.
(2) The registered care provider must make (or cause to be made) whatever enquiries it thinks necessary to enable it to decide whether any action should be taken in the adult’s case and, if so, what and by whom.
(3) Where abuse or neglect is suspected, the registered care provider is responsible for informing the Safeguarding Adults Board in its area and commits an offence if (without reasonable cause) it fails to do so.
(4) A registered care provider is guilty of an offence if the way in which its activities are managed or organised by its board or senior management neglects, or is a substantial element in, the existence and or possibility of abuse or neglect occurring.
(5) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, or to a fine, the range of which will be specified by regulations, or to both.’.
New clause 28—Review of protections for persons in the health and social care sector making disclosures in the public interest—
‘(1) Within six months of this Act receiving Royal Assent, the Secretary of State must make arrangements for an independent review of—
(a) the adequacy and effectiveness of provisions for the protection of persons employed within the health and social care sector who make disclosures in the public interest (whistleblowers) about matters of concern to their employer, a prescribed person or body or another person or body;
(b) the treatment and experience of past whistleblowers; and
(c) the need and opportunities to improve existing protections.
(2) The review shall take account of—
(a) the efficacy of existing legal provisions, policies, procedures and practices for the protection of whistleblowing and whistleblowers and access to redress for whistleblowers who suffer adversely consequent upon their disclosures;
(b) the available evidence on—
(i) the impact of whistleblowing on changes in health and social care standards; and
(ii) the treatment of whistleblowers over the last 20 years; and
(c) other matters as required by the Secretary of State.
(3) The Secretary of State shall arrange for a report with recommendations (or an interim report as may be required) from this review to be prepared and laid before each House of Parliament within 12 months of the review commencing.’.
New clause 29—Duty to minimise harm—
‘In section 20 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (regulation of regulated activities), after subsection (2)(b) insert—
(c) ensuring that the likelihood of harm befalling persons in respect of whom a regulated activity is taking place is reduced as far as possible.”.’.
New clause 30—Mandatory incident reporting and patient safety management systems—
‘In section 20 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (regulation of regulated activities), after subsection (3)(k) insert—
(l) impose requirements as to the reporting by all providers of regulated activities to the affected persons or their representative and family of incidents occurring in the carrying out of such activities which lead to the—
(i) death;
(ii) unexpected deterioration of condition; and
(iii) introduction of a new adverse condition in respect of the person, regardless of the severity of the new condition and the short and long term impact on the person;
(m) impose a requirement for the preparation and publication by all providers of regulated services of a safety management system plan.”.’.
New clause 33—Candour Commissioner—
‘(1) The Secretary of State shall establish an Office of the Care Commissioner for Candour and Disclosures in the Public Interest (the “Candour Commissioner’s Office”).
(2) The Candour Commissioner shall have duties to—
(a) protect and promote a culture of candour and disclosure in the public interest in the health and care services sector,
(b) provide or arrange confidential advice and support for persons working in the health and social care sector considering making a disclosure in the public interest,
(c) provide or arrange advice and support for persons in the sector who have made such a disclosure, and
(d) monitor the treatment, employment and re-employment of persons mentioned in paragraph (c) within the sector.
(3) The Commissioner shall report to the Secretary of State, with recommendations—
(a) on any issue within the Commissioner’s remit as she/he sees fit,
(b) making an assessment of the extent to which persons and bodies within the sector are protecting and promoting a culture of candour, with particular reference to the treatment, employment and re-employment within the sector of persons who have previously made a disclosure in the public interest.
(4) The Secretary of State shall lay a copy of the Commissioner’s annual report before each House of Parliament accompanied by an explanatory statement setting out the steps that the Government plan to take to remediate any shortcomings identified by the Commissioner.’.
Amendment 19, in clause 90, page 81, line 27, at end insert—
‘(2A) The Commission must, in respect of such English local authorities as may be prescribed—
(a) conduct reviews of the provision of such adult social services provided or commissioned by the authorities as may be prescribed;
(b) assess the performance of the authorities following each such review; and
(c) publish a report of its assessment.
(2B) Regulations under subsection (2A) may prescribe—
(a) all adult social services of a particular description; and
(b) all local authorities or particular local authorities.’.
Paul Burstow
This part of the Bill and this group of new clauses and amendments are all about ensuring that the system delivers the best possible quality of care and that, when things go wrong, it is clear how the situation is to be corrected and what penalties will be faced by those who have let people down and, in some cases, treated them in an appalling way. There is much in this part of the Bill that is to be applauded, although the nature of the Report stage of a Bill means that we often do not applaud a Bill much, because we are focusing on the things that we want to amend further.
New clause 8 deals with a subject that was also a feature of our discussions in Committee—namely, the concern that the commissioning role of too many local authorities, and the discharge of their responsibilities for planning for the care and support needs in their communities, had degenerated into little more than crude procurements and, worse still, in some cases just spot purchasing of care services. In some local authorities, there was no sense of strategy or of engagement with the local population, and there were no pragmatic conversations with provider organisations ahead of a procurement process. There was no real sense of how to shape the market to deliver the best possible outcome from the point of view of the wider public interest.
Those concerns were expressed a number of times in Committee, and they have been echoed throughout all the stages of the Bill. They were certainly strongly expressed by a number of the representative bodies of provider organisations when they gave evidence to the Joint Committee scrutinising the Bill. Of all the evidence sessions in that Joint Committee, the one that sticks with me is the one at which the provider organisations gave evidence. There was a palpable sense of the deterioration, and even the collapse, of relationships between local authorities and providers as a consequence of the commissioning not being done well in some organisations.
My new clause is designed to address a concern expressed by a number of organisations about a change that the Government made to the Bill in the other place. In that change, they removed from the legislation that established the Care Quality Commission the provision for periodic reviews of the performance of local authorities in regard to their statutory duties on care and support. I am prepared to accept the arguments that the Minister made before removing that provision, but only if we can have much greater certainty that the Care Quality Commission will undertake regular thematic reviews of care and support services.
New clause 8 sets out a number of the things that I think such a thematic review should include. For example, we have established a regime for sector-led improvement whereby local authorities can seek peer review of their delivery of quality commissioning of care and support services. It is working well in some places, but there is certainly evidence that it is not in others. There is a concern that arrangements will be made that allow an inadequate level of peer review and, frankly, people to get away with not doing the right thing. That is why a back-stop provision allowing thematic reviews is absolutely essential, and why ideally I would like the CQC to be independent in its judgment on that, rather than beholden to Ministers to authorise it. That is not the situation we are in, but the new clause would have us look at those issues.
I was told by a provider that I met at an event which the United Kingdom Homecare Association organised with me that CQC inspectors positively discourage comments about local authority commissioning. If a provider has a concern about how they are being constricted, arguably inappropriately, by a commissioner’s decision or practice and tries to raise that with an inspector, they are told, “That is not a matter for us.” It is absolutely a matter for the CQC. I hope the Minister can say something about what he will say to the CQC on that issue. It seems to me that understanding the intervention of commissioners is a really important part of gathering intelligence about the robustness of a local care economy, and the best way to gather that intelligence, at least in part, is by inspectors being open to being told about that.
Mr Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is a matter of not only looking at how competently a local authority commissioning process is commissioning the service as we know it, but thinking beyond that and enlarging the role of commissioning in changing the balance in the system of care delivery?
Paul Burstow
Absolutely. That is why the duty on market shaping set out in the Bill is about stretching the local authority to take that wider population-level interest, and not only for the people for whom they will arrange care and for whose care and support needs they will pay, but for the whole population who might need care and support but will be funding it themselves. I do not see how local authorities can satisfactorily discharge that new and important responsibility if there is not also a fairly critical examination of commissioning practices themselves. That is why I have tabled the new clause.
Andrew George
My right hon. Friend is making an excellent case. There is another reason why it is essential that inspection in that area becomes paramount, and that is because of the drivers in the system itself that discourage avoidable hospital and community hospital admissions and seek the earliest possible discharge into the community. What we have is a scenario in which people are being cared for in their homes, in an “out of sight, out of mind” environment, so inspections become all the more important because of the need to ensure that they are safe—
Paul Burstow
I defer to you on that point, Mr Deputy Speaker.
New clause 8 would ensure first, that there is an examination of how sector-led improvement is working; secondly, that the concern about rates for care, which we touched on when we debated new clause 15, is looked at, particularly time and task commissioning and procurement; and thirdly, that the way in which resource allocation formula are drafted and how they operate—an issue that came up in my Committee’s inquiry into the Bill—and the fact that they are often very opaque to the public, with regard to what is and is not in them when it comes to determining the level of a personal budget, are absolutely crucial to the quality of the care someone might be able to receive.
Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)
I thank the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) for getting this extensive group of new clauses and amendments under way. I understand that he shares a lot of the concerns felt by Labour Members, and the concerns of the Chair of the Health Committee have also been illustrated, as have those of other Government Members. It is essential that the Government take action to address the issues before the House.
The main issue I wish to raise this evening is the ability of the Care Quality Commission to inspect the commissioning of adult care services by local authorities. A number of new clauses and amendments have been tabled, and rather than examine each in extensive detail, it will be better for colleagues if I speak to the principles at the heart of the issue. It is, however, crucial that we understand the background to this group of new clauses and amendments.
In 2010, the Government announced the cessation of annual performance assessments. On application that has resulted in the CQC no longer inspecting the commissioning practices of local authorities. One consequences of that has been for local authorities to peer review voluntarily the services provided by neighbouring local authorities, and that in turn has resulted in the creation of a kind of opacity, or a climate of perverse incentives. Local authorities are more likely to give a neighbouring authority the benefit of the doubt on such issues. Co-operation has become the default in the sector, and although that should be welcomed to a degree, there is a disincentive for any local authority to raise issues of poor care in an adjoining local authority on which it might rely for assistance and other services. Given the financial strain on local authorities as austerity bites, they are forced to merge functions—and more—with each other, meaning that the disincentive is likely to persist for the time being at least.
As was pointed out and discussed in some detail in Committee, a strong effective regulator is as essential in the health and social care system as in any other sector—perhaps even more so. Only through thorough and effective monitoring and enforcement can patients have confidence in the services they receive, or exercise an informed choice when choosing those services. That is why the previous Government legislated for the creation of the first ever independent regulation of the NHS, and what is today the Care Quality Commission.
Regulatory oversight is an iterative process that by its very nature tends to be more active in taking remedial action than preventive action. It is the responsibility of every Member of the House to ensure that the regulator is given the tools and resources it requires to be as proactive as possible in preventing problems not just in the future following care failures, but before any failures occur in the first place. In short, the best regulatory systems are intelligent and proactive. That is why it is essential that the Care Quality Commission should be allowed proactively to inspect and review the commissioning of adult social care undertaken by local authorities. It is one thing to inspect the service provided—clearly that is important—but more information could be revealed, and better regulation resulting in better services would be enabled, if the regulator could inspect the process of service commissioning.
When a service fails, we need to understand the root causes of such a failure. How has a poor service come to pass? Is it down to a poor operator, a poor service provider, or is the local authority not commissioning the right service in the right way? Under the Bill, only once a pattern of poor care is identified can the CQC apply to the Secretary of State for permission to undertake a special review. There are a number of issues with that. First, the quality of care would have to be extremely low for a consistent period to allow a pattern of poor care to be identified, and that does not provide the best level of protection for service users suffering from inadequate care services. Secondly, the CQC would have to bear a significant burden to prove such a pattern before undertaking a special review. Such a burden will consume time and resource, while again prolonging the time during which service users may be receiving inadequate levels of care.
When the Minister responds, will he outline what threshold of proof would be required for a Secretary of State to grant the CQC permission for such a review, and say whether that has been modelled within the Department at any stage? Surely such issues have been considered. What mitigation does the Bill contain to prevent poor levels of care from continuing to be provided while investigations into care standards are ongoing? How does the proposed model fit the Ofsted model? On the face of it, it does not appear to fit it at all, because Ofsted does not wait for schools to fail before stepping in. I think—the Minister knows my views on this—that such a comparison has never been accurate and that strained and unnatural is a more precise description. The whole House will appreciate hearing the defence of a regulatory system that regulates only once failure has occurred.
As the Bill stands, it would appear that current provisions are best suited for remedial action to address instances of failure. The Bill addresses only actions to be taken following poor care, but does not give the necessary freedom to the CQC to act to prevent poor care from occurring in the first instance. That puts a limit on the practices of the CQC, and on application would mean that the inspection of commissioning would take place only in special circumstances. My fear is that we are knowingly legislating for a leaden-footed regulatory regime—hence the need for amendment 19.
The roots of care failures could be lodged firmly in the process of commissioning, and it is right that an independent regulator has the ability and duty to inspect all issues relating to the quality of provision before failures occur. Amendment 19 seeks to address the Government’s clear oversight in that regard. It would give the CQC more freedom to explore all aspects of care provision, rather than just quality, at the point where care is administered, and it would provide the scope for whole-system inspection. Problems can manifest much earlier in the process of care provision than the point at which care is received, and as such those problems must be dealt with earlier. The only way that is possible is for the CQC to be able to assess the quality of local authority commissioning.
If the Government seek to oppose amendment 19, I would be grateful if the Minister would explain why he thinks that the rather fudged clause in the Bill should remain unamended. The commissioning of services is clearly linked to the quality of service provided, so to limit CQC oversight to just one aspect, as in the Bill, is a flawed approach that knowingly turns a blind eye to other parts of the system, which are ultimately responsible for the standard of care provided.
The consequence of refusing to address the issues surrounding commissioning clearly results in the problems illustrated earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall). A lack of oversight has meant that 15-minute visits and zero-hours contracts are quickly becoming the default option for care, rather than being used in extreme circumstances—we must all surely hear complaints about the consequences and effects of such an approach in our surgeries; I certainly do so.
Amendment 19 would give the CQC oversight of commissioning practices and lead to an improvement in care, and new clause 8 would put a duty on the CQC to undertake a review into commissioning practices within a year of the commencement of part 1 of the proposed Act. While that would be worth while in the short to medium term, to be useful in the longer term the CQC must be able to repeat inspections when it deems appropriate, not just when the Secretary of State requires it.
Clause 89 is entitled:
“Independence of the Care Quality Commission”.
Everyone across the House agrees with that principle except, it would appear, the Government in relation to this part of the Bill. Rather than giving the CQC independence to inspect commissioning services routinely, they are placing a shackle of ministerial approval on inspections that the CQC may deem necessary. That cannot be right, and to my mind it contradicts everything that the Government have said over the past 12 months regarding the need for CQC independence.
New clause 27 is tabled in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith). It would create an offence of corporate responsibility for neglect, which could see directors of care providers face jail if their management of a service led to abuse or neglect. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s work on this issue, and I know he works tirelessly helping those who have suffered as a result of neglect in the adult social care system. He does superb work in the House and is a credit to his constituency and his illustrious predecessors. It is right that we do everything in our power to ensure that those who abuse or neglect people in care are held to account. We put an inordinate amount of trust and faith in care providers, and if that trust is betrayed by wilful neglect or mismanagement, the perpetrators should face real punishment. These services are provided for some of the most vulnerable people in our society, and harm brought about by neglect must be punished. I would be grateful if the Minister would speak more about those issues, and say how the Government intend to address them.
Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)
I shall speak to new clauses 28, 29, 30 and 33, which stand in my name and those of other hon. Members from both sides of the House.
There is a huge amount to welcome in the Bill, and on Second Reading I welcomed the steps in part 2 to implement many of the recommendations in the Francis report. I said at the time that although there has been good progress, there remains a lot more to do, which is the reason behind the new clauses. I have tabled four new clauses—two on whistleblowing and two on patient safety. Those are both vital areas that we must get right.
I welcome the measures that the Government have taken to improve protection for whistleblowers, including changes to the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 and the banning of gagging clauses. Whistleblowers are not only individuals who are able to see where things have gone wrong when others around them have perhaps gone native and begun to accept the unacceptable, but they are people with the moral backbone and courage to speak out when things are wrong. It is hugely important that we have a culture where people do not need to become whistleblowers, because their complaints are taken up far earlier and they do not need to go down routes outside the usual complaints process. We should have a culture where people are encouraged to speak out, and where raising concerns is seen as a good thing.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
New clause 27 would establish an offence of corporate neglect. The problem needs to be tackled following police Operation Jasmine in south-east Wales. That six-year investigation of care-home abuse cost £11.6 million. Three care workers were prosecuted, but the owners—in my view, they were the real culprits—escaped punishment owing to legal hurdles. That is not acceptable. One patient had appalling sores. They were so infected that the bone underneath was visible. I was deeply shocked at the photographs of neglect I was shown from the case. The then deputy chief constable of Gwent police said:
“There is a likelihood that there are cases like this occurring every day…across the country”.
New clause 27 would ensure that care providers are in no doubt that their primary responsibility is the care of their residents. It is supported by Age UK and was recommended by the Joint Committee on the draft Care and Support Bill, which conducted pre-legislative scrutiny.
I accept that the Government’s proposals to strengthen the Care Quality Commission will go a significant way to preventing horrific abuses such as those at Winterbourne View, but without the offence of corporate neglect, the proposals do not do enough. In the Winterbourne View case, the longest sentence for a staff member—they pleaded guilty to nine charges of ill treating patients—was two years. That sentence is mirrored in other cases. It is only fair that an equal sentence is available in cases of corporate neglect.
Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
I have listened with great interest to my hon. Friend, as I did to the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie). Given that many such awful incidents involve people with learning disabilities, will he assure me that he has very much in mind their views as well as those of their advocates and families, and that they will be embraced by the legislation, particularly if his proposals are agreed to?
Nick Smith
I assure my right hon. Friend that the new clause refers to all adults, so takes on board the people he mentions.
Subsection (4) of the new clause seeks to strengthen protection. It would ensure that, if abuse were found to have an element of corporate responsibility, and if systems or the approaches taken by the care provider are a contributory factor in the abuse or neglect, the new offence would allow the prosecution of a registered care provider. The Government have the opportunity to shape the culture of the care sector in the Bill tonight.
Grahame M. Morris
In Committee, the Minister said that he supported the sentiment of the proposal. Does my hon. Friend accept that, although the new fit and proper person test and the new fundamental standards are important, they do not make provision for a custodial sentence for proprietors, managers and directors of such establishments in such cases?
Nick Smith
My hon. Friend has got to the nub of the issue. Managers and directors of organisations such as care homes have to accept that they set the culture of those places, and that they are responsible for looking after the residents in their care, and for avoiding neglect and abuse. If they get it wrong, they should face the possibility of a jail sentence. That is what the new clause would do.
We must go that extra mile to ensure that our safeguards deliver for care home residents. New clause 27 would greatly help that cause. I intend to divide the House on the measure.
Mr Dorrell
I want to speak primarily to the new clauses moved by my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, but first I wish to comment on the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie), who has been a consistent advocate of the importance of ensuring that we have a culture in our health and care system that creates space for whistle- blowers, not because we want a world full of whistleblowers, but because we want an open culture—as she rightly says—in which the whistleblower is redundant.
The example often cited in this area comes from the US Navy. A junior rating prevented flying from an aircraft carrier because he was concerned about a safety element. As it happened, the concern was misplaced, but the rating was celebrated because he had the courage to raise it. The culture of the ship was such that it allowed that individual to take the steps necessary to cover the risk. In a sense, the story is most telling because the concern was misplaced but the individual was celebrated for having had the courage to take action. That is the kind of culture that we should have in the health and care system.
I do not agree that we need a candour commissioner: it is part of the core function of the Care Quality Commission’s inspections of health and care provider institutions to make an assessment of whether that culture exists in an institution. If that culture does not exist, it is hard to see how that institution can deliver the standards of care that we would all want to see.
My main reason for speaking is to pick up the points raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond—
Mr Dorrell
Forgive me—the right part of London, but the wrong constituency.
My right hon. Friend is on to an important point and I shall listen with care to what the Minister has to say in reply. We have been arguing for the best part of a quarter of a century about the role of commissioners, not just in the social care sector but across the health and care sector. As my right hon. Friend said, in different parts of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 this commitment to what is, in the jargon, called integration, but what I prefer to call joined-up services, is introduced into different parts of the system. Rightly, my right hon. Friend wants to include it in the terms of reference of the Care Quality Commission, but we need to think beyond just introducing it as an add-on into bits of legislation, the prime purpose of which lies elsewhere.
In my view we have no choice—and I do not particularly want a choice—but to create a health and care system that puts more emphasis on prevention, on community services and on joining those services to the rest of the health and care provider network. For a quarter of a century we have been seeking, rather spasmodically and under Governments of all political complexions, to build a commissioner system charged with delivering that type of care system. Ministers need to rise to the challenge of showing how we move from where we are today towards a commissioning system that is fit for purpose to deliver that type of care outcome. The system that we operate is often described as fragmented, and we all know that different parts of the system are indeed fragmented. But the fragmentation is worst in the commissioning institutions. We have social service authorities that are responsible for commissioning social care, and in the next sentence of our speeches we say that that is the same thing as community services, but those are commissioned by CCGs. In the next breath, we say that community health is the same as primary health, but that is commissioned by NHS England. As they say in the modern jargon, “Talk me through it.” How do we deliver properly joined-up services if the people responsible for commissioning the service are so fragmented?
Paul Burstow
My right hon. Friend is making a very important point, which he has pursued vigorously as Chair of the Select Committee. Does he agree that part of the evolution that needs to take place is an extension of the role that we originally envisaged for health and wellbeing boards, so that they become the place where these matters come together? The default should be changed to one that presumes integration and joined-up services, rather than the other way around.
Mr Dorrell
I agree with the thought that my right hon. Friend identifies. I have been choosing my words with care—I hope—in inviting the Minister to chart a course towards a more joined-up concept of commissioning. Almost as I offer my critique of the commissioning structures, I can feel officials in the Box writing the next version of the legislation that will have another go at providing the perfect solution to deliver something that is better than we have ever dreamt up before. I emphasise that what I am looking for from the Minister is a route map or journey—a process, not an event—and preferably one that builds on existing institutions rather than committing what I regard as the mistake of starting again with a clean sheet of paper.
Grahame M. Morris
The idea that the right hon. Gentleman propagates, which he has long held—that fragmentation is a bad thing and integration and joined-up services are a good thing—is one that I subscribe to, but does he share my concerns at reports that the commissioning functions through the clinical commissioning groups are to be privatised? Is that likely to make for more joined-up services or greater fragmentation?
Mr Dorrell
The hon. Gentleman knows that I do not entirely share his concern about who holds the share certificate for a particular service. I am more concerned about the accountability of a public authority for the use of public money to deliver a public service. On that, the hon. Gentleman and I are probably as one. I am also concerned that the system, from the perspective of the patient and service user, does not rely on them finding their way under their own steam through an impenetrable morass, but is designed with their needs and instincts in mind. That is a test that our current system simply does not pass and has not passed for many years.
Mr Tom Clarke
The right hon. Gentleman speaks with enormous authority on these matters. On the issue of community care, does he agree that for many years we have talked about joint planning, which is essential if community care is to be delivered? Does he feel that, even with the Bill and the proposed new clauses, the commission would have sufficient authority to ensure that it works as efficiently and sensitively as the House would expect?
Mr Dorrell
No, I do not believe that simply empowering the Care Quality Commission to go into that space is the answer to the question that I am posing. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) is closer to the right answer in identifying the health and wellbeing board at a local level as the beginnings of an organisation that can deliver a more joined-up commissioning process, joining up the social care system, the community health system, the primary health system and, of course, the hospital service—and I always add the social housing people. In a properly joined-up service, they would focus their attention on the needs of the individual patient service user—an awful piece of terminology; we cannot work out precisely what to call them.
I wish to highlight a bit of institutional tension. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam proposes that this is a function for the CQC, but I am not entirely convinced. A tension underlying several contributions this evening relates to whether the CQC is the regulator of a provider, or an organisation with responsibility for charting the course, which I am looking for from the Minister, towards a new form of commissioning. The CQC has a full job to do responding to some of the things that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West was talking about—culture and service quality on the provider side—and I am not persuaded that trying to manoeuvre it into the space of developing the kind of joined-up commissioning service I am describing is the right answer to that question.
Norman Lamb
I reassure my right hon. Friend that I want to chart the course with him. I completely agree on the need to bring commissioning together. The better care fund is a good nudge in the right direction, but we need to go much further in due course.
Mr Dorrell
I am grateful to the Minister for his encouragement that I am on the right path.
There is a serious question here. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam that, at a local level, the health and wellbeing board is the organisation best placed to move forward with the process of more joined-up commissioning. How we, as MPs, satisfy ourselves that this is happening to the required standard, with the required levels of economic efficiency across the system as a whole and above the level of the health and wellbeing board, is one of the questions left unanswered by the institutions we currently have. I am not entirely persuaded that the CQC should be encouraged into what I regard as a vacuum.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I will speak to amendment 19 and echo some of the excellent comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Mr Reed).
Amendment 19 would reinstate the Care Quality Commission’s duty to inspect the commissioning of adult social care services by local authorities. The case for the amendment is very simple: the quality of commissioning has a huge impact on the quality of care that people receive. It is extremely important that our adult social care system includes checks to ensure that commissioning is of a high standard. At present, this is not the case.
The current model of sector-led improvement introduced by this Government in 2010 leaves it to local authority peer reviews to identify failure. In practice, this means that neighbouring authorities that already work in close collaboration inspect each other, but only when a neighbouring authority volunteers for inspection. Of course, local authorities that are confident in their commissioning practices are happy to volunteer themselves for scrutiny, but what about those that do not volunteer? It is surely those authorities that we should be most concerned about, yet under the current system they are not subject to proper oversight. Worryingly, the majority of authorities have not been assessed under the peer review scheme. In total, 127 local authorities have not had their commissioning reviewed since 2010. We would not allow this type of reckless leniency with any other service that looks after our most vulnerable. I am certain that it should not continue.
It is clear that when it comes to inspecting local authorities’ commissioning practices, some uniformity and impartiality are needed. The CQC is best positioned to carry out that duty. Certainly, the chief executive of the CQC thinks so, commenting that he has not
“spoken to any national provider association who doesn’t think councils should be inspected”
and believes that
“the removal of that power from CQC was seen as a retrograde step”.
When this proposal was raised in Committee, the Minister insisted that it was unnecessary. He argued that CQC inspection of providers could identify patterns of poor commissioning that would be grounds for a special review.
Mr Tom Clarke
My hon. Friend is making a convincing case. I have a background in local government. Does she agree that if statutory obligations are placed on local authorities, it is important that that they should be followed by the appropriate resources, but that that is not always the case?
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I agree completely, and I will echo my right hon. Friend’s comments later in my speech.
I have some doubts about how effective CQC inspection of providers would be in practice. It is not clear at what point the CQC would recognise that poor provision was caused by poor commissioning practices. A handful of poor examples could be just that, or it could be evidence of a more systemic problem. Given the need for the Secretary of State’s approval before a special review is undertaken, I am concerned that the threshold of proof needed will be extremely high. Furthermore, CQC inspectors will not visit all providers in a single local authority area at the same time. In practice, it could take some months before information is collated and a pattern of failure detected that might indicate sub-standard commissioning. There is also a doubt about who will be joining up the dots to link months’ worth of inspections to a local area’s commissioning practices. In short, how will anyone ever know that poor providers are linked to poor commissioning by a particular local authority? The reality is that by the time the CQC recognises that there is a case for a special review, numerous safeguarding issues could have arisen.
I am concerned that, under the model the Minister advocated in Committee, action will be taken only once patterns of poor care have already taken root in a local authority. Surely that is the wrong way round. We need to prevent poor care arising from substandard commissioning, rather than wait for problems to become embedded in the system. This not only makes sense financially: from a safeguarding perspective, it is essential. I am concerned that without rigorous oversight, social care departments will find it easier to allow standards to slip.
In Committee, the Minister argued that the duty for local authorities to consider well-being would incentivise good practice. I do not believe that this is enough. I do not want to be critical of any local authority’s will to ensure the well-being of their service users, but I know from personal experience that these departments face intense pressure. If something is not built into the system, it is less of a priority. If departments know that the CQC will not be knocking on the door this year, they will concentrate on more urgent matters—trust me, in adult social care there are always urgent matters. Knowing that they are subject to regular oversight makes departments foster a culture of good practice.
In discussions I have had with providers and commissioners, they say they are in favour of reinstating the clause. Commissioners, whose day job is to fill gaps in services and to do so in the most cost-effective way, are worried that their decisions are not properly scrutinised, and that any mistakes they may unwittingly make will go unchallenged. Providers want it to be clear when they are at fault or when failure is down to poor commissioning. They do not want under-resourced providers to be punished simply because the rates that they receive from the local authority are too low to provide decent care.
I remain puzzled about why, although in June last year the Minister admitted that sector-led improvement had serious shortcomings for weaker-performing councils and, presumably because of his doubts, the Bill originally included the new clause, yet in October, for some reason, it was removed on Report in the other place, and the Minister has now moved from being in favour of CQC inspection of commissioning to being against it. I was also puzzled when the Minister repeated his concern about sector-led improvement in Committee. Following an intervention from the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow), he said that he shared the right hon. Gentleman’s view that
“the danger with sector-led improvement is that those bodies who are up for change and improvement take part and those who are dysfunctional and failing do not engage.” —[Official Report, Care Public Bill Committee, 28 January 2014; c. 442.]
Given that the CQC, providers and commissioners—along with the Minister— recognise the blind spots that exist in the sector-led improvement system, I hope that the Minister is open to convincing on the issue. If he is not convinced, I hope that he will be able to explain what he could not explain in Committee, namely why he and the Government changed their minds.
Norman Lamb
Let me begin by thanking all Members for their contributions to the debate.
Part 2 of the Bill contains a range of measures to implement the Francis recommendations following the awful events at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. The changes that we are introducing are intended to make a reality of Robert Francis’s recommendation that the NHS, and indeed all care services and those who work in them, should adopt and demonstrate a shared culture in which the patient is always the priority.
I accept the principle that lies behind new clause 8 and amendment 19, but the oversight of commissioning is not the core purpose of the CQC. I want the CQC’s main focus to be on providers and the quality of care provided for patients and service users. Any review or investigation of commissioning of services by the CQC will have an impact on its capacity to oversee service provision, and should be selected with care. It is therefore right for any CQC special review or investigation of commissioning to continue to be either at the request of, or subject to the approval of, Ministers—in the case of reviews of local authority commissioning, the Secretaries of State for both Health and Communities and Local Government.
I want to make my position absolutely clear. If there is strong evidence of a link between commissioning and poor care, the CQC will be able to examine it.
Norman Lamb
I will give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) first.
Paul Burstow
I apologise for getting in just before the hon. Lady.
May I return to a point that I raised in my opening remarks? At present, inspectors disavow the opportunity of providers to give them the evidence to which the Minister has referred. They say that they are not interested in it. Will the Minister ensure that the CQC and its inspectors are open and receptive to such evidence when providers offer it to them?
Norman Lamb
Subject to the fact that the CQC is an independent body, I will certainly reinforce that point in my discussions with it. In the context of mental health, we were discussing with the CQC only last week the importance of the role of commissioning as well as that of provision. I entirely accept that good care can be provided only if we get both the commissioning side and the provider side right: the two must go together.
Is it appropriate to set out the specifics of a review of commissioning in the Bill? I do not believe that it is. Flexibility is vital. While the CQC has a power to conduct special reviews and investigations of commissioning, that must be set in the context of other measures in the Bill that will strengthen the duties that local authorities must fulfil in exercising their care and support functions.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
Perhaps I am being impatient—the Minister may deal with this point later in his speech—but I should like to know who will routinely review local authority commissioning. If no one will be doing that, how will the CQC know that poor commissioning is taking place in a local authority area?
Norman Lamb
I take very seriously the point that the hon. Lady has raised, but if she will allow me to continue to present my argument, I shall be happy to return to it later if necessary.
The important new measures include an express duty to promote people’s well-being—a duty to shape local care markets to ensure that they are sustainable and diverse, and offer high quality care and support. The Department will work with the local government and adult social care sector to produce statutory guidance on local authority commissioning of care and support. However, a CQC review of commissioning remains an option. I reassure right hon. and hon. Members that we will review evidence of concerns about local authorities’ commissioning practice to establish whether it is appropriate to ask the CQC to undertake a targeted review under section 48 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008. Getting the message out to commissioners that the powers will be used is important in itself to concentrate minds. They will be under the spotlight if they fail in their commissioning responsibilities.
New clause 12 would require the CQC to consider integration of care as part of its performance assessments of registered providers of health and adult social care. In Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam made a strong case for the new system of performance ratings to be carried out by the CQC to look at care pathways, rather than focusing on separate institutions in isolation. He makes a very good case. I explained that a central tenet for the Government is that the independence of the CQC improves its effectiveness as a regulator. Clause 89 removes nine separate powers for the Secretary of State to intervene in the day-to-day workings of the commission, and we have deliberately removed the Secretary of State’s power to devise or approve the system for performance assessments and ratings.
The CQC has to be responsible for the system of performance assessment that it introduces, and placing specific requirements on the commission in legislation would not help in that regard. That is not to say that the CQC should not look into the integration of care. I told the Committee that I would pursue that matter in my discussions with the CQC, and I have done so. I have spoken to the CQC chair, David Prior, and to the chief executive. I am pleased to say that in that regard we are pushing at an open door. They absolutely understand the case that my right hon. Friend makes.
In recent weeks, the commission’s chief executive, David Behan, has set out plans for the CQC to carry out thematic inspections to look at the care pathways for different conditions. One such thematic programme will look at how people with dementia are handled by relevant services in a geographical area—acute health care, primary health care and adult social care, for example. Another is looking at how people move across transition points, such as when a disabled child becomes an adult—a point at which too often services fall down.
Mr Tom Clarke
The Minister has outlined that he wants to work with the commission, local authorities and others in these important matters. Does he agree that there are issues on which organisations such as Mencap have a lot to contribute? Would he see the Government’s approach on those matters as being inclusive in that respect?
Norman Lamb
I totally agree with the right hon. Gentleman. The more that we talk to organisations with expertise such as Mencap when we are designing the commissioning and inspecting of facilities, the better we are at the job that we do. We must not think that we have all the answers in Whitehall.
A future thematic review could consider the integration of health and social care services either in a particular location or across a particular condition. I am keen that the commission pursue that further, but, as I say, I think that we are pushing at an open door in that regard.
New clause 33 would create the new post of candour commissioner for England. The commissioner would be tasked with protecting and promoting a culture of candour and disclosure in the health and social care sectors, an ambition that I think we would all share. The Government are taking steps to make a culture of candour and openness a reality. We will put in place a statutory duty of candour on providers registered with the CQC—I am personally delighted that we are doing that. That will require providers of health and social care to be open with patients and service users where there are failings in care.
I commend to the House the excellent review of the duty of candour by Professor Norman Williams and Sir David Dalton, which was published last week. We will consider the recommendations of the review—I repeat that I thought it was excellent—as we develop regulations to implement the duty of candour as a requirement for registration with the CQC. We are also enhancing the professional duty of candour through changes to professional guidance and codes.
Effective whistleblowing and complaints systems are vital parts of an open and transparent culture. As the Committee Chair, my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell), pointed out, what we are after is a system in which whistleblowing is no longer necessary because the culture is open. That will help to improve public and patient safety and the quality of services provided.
This Government support the right of staff working in the NHS to raise concerns and expect all NHS organisations to support staff who wish to do so. NHS organisations have to have in place policies that are compliant with whistleblowing legislation. Also, the CQC’s new inspection system will include discussions with hospitals about how they deal with whistleblowers, and the CQC is reviewing its arrangement for handling whistleblowing concerns. The CQC’s national adviser for patient safety has recently established, and chairs, a forum of whistleblowers, so the CQC understands the issue and recognises its central role in this regard.
I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) will agree with me that we will only achieve the change in culture that we are seeking by creating champions for candour and openness throughout every tier of every organisation—people who really believe in openness in both health and adult social care. Promoting and protecting candour is the business of every member of staff in health and social care. Indeed, the Dalton-Williams review prefaced its discussion of the candour threshold with a clear recommendation to establish a culture of candour based on training and support of staff and more accurate reporting of safety incidents.
I would also point out that the creation of a new office of candour commissioner would need funding. Given the measures we are already putting in place to support candour, I am not convinced that a candour commissioner would be the best use of finite resources.
New clause 28 would require the Secretary of State to commission an independent review of whistleblowing arrangements within six months of this Bill coming into force. I recognise that reviews, as suggested in this amendment, can play a key role in ensuring that legislation is operating as intended—a form of post-legislative scrutiny. It is for this reason that the Government, through the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, have recently carried out “The Whistleblowing Framework: Call for Evidence”. This call for evidence is part of a review of the effectiveness of the legislation around whistleblowing, specifically considering whether the protections available in the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 for those wishing to raise concerns are effective. Members of the public and experts have been asked to submit evidence to BIS’s review. The findings will be published this spring. My Department has submitted evidence to this review on behalf of the health and care sectors, having taken the views of the professional regulatory bodies, but I do not support putting a commitment in primary legislation to undertake a review such as the one suggested in the amendment.
New clause 10 relates to the single failure regime for NHS trusts and foundation trusts. I repeat the assurance given in Committee that where the chief inspector of hospitals finds that patients are exposed to an immediate risk of harm, he will continue to be able to take swift and decisive action under section 31 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008. This new clause would prevent the CQC from being able to trigger trust special administration on quality grounds while it was using its powers under section 31. The chief inspector needs to be able to draw on the full range of the CQC’s powers to ensure regulatory action is appropriate in each case. We must not set unnecessary constraints on the CQC’s ability to address failings in quality. There may well be situations where the CQC needs urgently to suspend a particular service and also to consider trust special administration to ensure that high quality services can be sustained.
Let me make it clear that the CQC will be able to trigger trust special administration only where there has been a serious failure of quality and it is appropriate to do so. There are a number of ways to support trusts to improve, ensuring that special administration is only the last resort. Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Authority have a range of intervention powers and can also place trusts and foundation trusts in special measures to provide a package of measures to support improvement.
Paul Burstow
The Minister mentioned that a number of measures may be taken pre-failure in order to avoid the failure regime being triggered. Before tomorrow’s debate on clause 119, will he supply the measures by way of example, so that we can debate those very issues?
Norman Lamb
I am happy to ensure that a note goes to my right hon. Friend and other Members, as he requests.
New clauses 29 and 30 would introduce a power to create new requirements for registration with the CQC, one requiring providers to minimise the risk of harm to patients and service users, and the other requiring providers to inform patients and their representatives where treatment leads to harm, and to prepare a safety management plan. Section 20 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 sets out the areas in which the Government may impose, through regulations, requirements on providers registered with the CQC. It is a broad power and expressly allows regulations for
“securing the health, safety and welfare of persons”
for whom services are provided. This is broad enough to include minimising harm to patients. In addition, it expressly includes a power for the registration requirements to cover
“the manner in which a regulated activity is carried on”,
which would cover a requirement to prepare a safety management plan.
Clause 80 also places a duty on the Government to introduce a new registration requirement of informing patients and service users where there have been failings in their care—the duty of candour. I hope that I have reassured my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West that the power already exists to include the proposed areas in the CQC registration requirements.
My Department is consulting on draft regulations to put in place new fundamental standards as requirements for registration with the CQC. These would require providers to take “appropriate steps” to mitigate the risks of service users receiving care that is “inappropriate or unsafe”. We plan to consult shortly on a new duty of candour requirement. We will, of course, develop the final regulations, which will be subject to the affirmative procedure, in the light of the comments received in the planned consultation.
Finally, I support the sentiment behind new clause 27, that providers of care services should be held to account where they allow abuse or neglect, and that there should be serious consequences where this occurs. Under the fundamental standards on which we are consulting at the moment, all providers registered with the CQC must take steps to avoid abuse and neglect, and take action where those occur. Where providers are responsible for abuse, the CQC will be able to prosecute them. In fact, in response to Winterbourne View, I took the view that there was a gap in the regulatory framework, which did not allow for proper corporate accountability. I felt that we had to change the arrangements to ensure that companies, trusts and other providers were held to account where they were responsible for abuse or neglect. We are achieving that objective.
In addition, we have brought forward proposals to respond to the most egregious failures of care. On 27 February, we published our consultation on the detailed proposals for a new criminal offence of ill-treatment or wilful neglect. The Berwick report was clear that this offence should apply to individuals and organisations, whether or not they are registered with the CQC. We agree with that approach, and are consulting on the proposal. The new criminal offence, together with the CQC’s responsibility to respond to poor quality care, is sufficient to ensure that action is taken against unacceptable standards of care, and that there are serious consequences where this occurs.
Paul Burstow
I am grateful for the Minister’s responses to my three new clauses. I look forward to hearing what other hon. Members have to say about their provisions, but on the basis of the assurances I have been given, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 27
Corporate responsibility for neglect
‘(1) This section applies where a person registered under Chapter 2 of Part 1 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (a “registered care provider”) in respect of the carrying on of a regulated activity (within the meaning of that Part) has reasonable cause to suspect that an adult in their care is experiencing, or at risk of, abuse and neglect.
(2) The registered care provider must make (or cause to be made) whatever enquiries it thinks necessary to enable it to decide whether any action should be taken in the adult’s case and, if so, what and by whom.
(3) Where abuse or neglect is suspected, the registered care provider is responsible for informing the Safeguarding Adults Board in its area and commits an offence if (without reasonable cause) it fails to do so.
(4) A registered care provider is guilty of an offence if the way in which its activities are managed or organised by its board or senior management neglects, or is a substantial element in, the existence and or possibility of abuse or neglect occurring.
(5) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, or to a fine, the range of which will be specified by regulations, or to both.’.—(Nick Smith.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Mr Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment (a) to Government new clause 34, in subsection (3), after ‘of’, insert ‘improving’.
Amendment (b) to Government new clause 34, in subsection (3), after ‘adult social care’, insert
‘; and if it has satisfied itself that the recipient is competent to handle the data in compliance with all statutory duties and to respect and promote the privacy of recipients of health services and adult social care.”.’.
New clause 25—Misuse of data provided by the Health and Social Care Information Centre: offence—
‘(1) A person or entity commits an offence if they misuse, or negligently allow the misuse of information they have requested and received from the Health and Social Care Information Centre.
(2) “Misuse” means—
(a) using information in a way that violates the agreement with the Health and Social Care Information Centre;
(b) using information in a way that does not violate the agreement with the Health and Social Care Information Centre, but that gives rise to use that is outside the agreed limits of use; or
(c) using information supplied by the Health and Social Care Information Centre in such a way as to allow or enable individual patients to be identified by a third party.
(3) A person who is guilty of an offence under subsection (1) is liable—
(a) on summary conviction, to an unlimited fine;
(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for not more than two years or a fine, or both.
(4) An entity who is guilty of an offence under subsection (1)—
(a) is liable to an unlimited fine; and
(b) must disclose the conviction on all future applications to access data from the Health and Social Care Information Centre.’.
Government amendment 8.
Amendment 29, in clause 116, page 100, line 29, after ‘Authority’, insert
‘and the Secretary of State’.
Government amendments 17, 18, 15 and 16.
Dr Poulter
The Government are fully committed to the care.data programme and to the core principles that underpin its use, which are to present and promote transparency in the quality of health and care services to patients and the public, while protecting their privacy and confidentiality; to promote health and care research to help us to understand how to fight disease, cure illness and improve care; and to better integrate health and care services by using the data and information to understand what good, joined-up and integrated care looks like.
Dr Poulter
I have not said anything controversial yet, so if the hon. Gentleman will let me make some progress, I will happily give way later.
To realise the huge potential of health care data, patients and professionals must have absolute trust in the way that the data will be protected and used, together with an understanding of why collecting the data on such a scale is important. I absolutely understand that many people have concerns about how the process might work, but I am confident that the Government amendments will bring further reassurance to the House about the care.data programme.
The Government fully support NHS England’s decision to delay the start of the care.data programme so that more work can be done to build understanding and confidence. NHS England will be leading that work. In parallel, having listened to key stakeholders and to discussions in this place, the Government have brought forward a package of measures, including amendments to the Bill, to respond to concerns and to give the public greater clarity and reassurance that their data are safe.
The Health and Social Care Act 2012, which established the Health and Social Care Information Centre, introduced a raft of safeguards to balance the huge benefits that linking health and care data can bring. That offered people greater protection than was previously available. It is worth highlighting some sections of the 2012 Act as examples of that.
Under section 260, the Health and Social Care Information Centre must not publish the information that it obtains in a form that would enable an individual, other than a provider of care, to be identified. Similarly, under section 261, the HSCIC cannot disseminate share data that could be used to identify an individual, other than a provider of care, except when there is another legal basis for doing so, which could happen in the event of a civil emergency or public health emergency, such as a flu pandemic. Under section 263, the HSCIC must publish a code of practice that makes it clear how it and others should handle confidential data. Under section 264, the HSCIC must be open and transparent about the data it obtains by publishing a register with descriptions of the information. Indeed, the HSCIC is currently working to ensure that it is transparent about all the data it has released to others.
Moreover, the Government have made the commitment that if someone has concerns about data being used in this way, they can ask their general practice to note their objection and opt out of the system. Following that, no identifiable data about them will flow from their GP record to the HSCIC. Directions to the HSCIC under section 254 of the 2012 Act—separate from the amendments that the House is considering—will ensure that that commitment to patients has legal force.
We are going further than that. Having listened to key stakeholders and to discussions in Parliament, we have a further package of measures that, in parallel with NHS England’s further engagement activity, will respond to the concerns that we have heard and give the public additional reassurance that their data are safe. Of course, aggregated and anonymised data, which cannot be used to identify any individual person, should and will be made generally available. Indeed, a great deal of research relies on data of this type, where researchers do not need to see any data at the individual person level. Such aggregated and anonymous data are available now, and were available previously through the predecessor body to the HSCIC.
New clause 34 sets out a number of changes to the 2012 Act which, taken together, clarify when the HSCIC can and cannot release data. The new clause expressly prevents the HSCIC from using its general dissemination power where there is not a clear health care, adult social care or health promotion purpose—for example, for commercial insurance purposes. I am happy to confirm that the new clause enables anonymised information to be disseminated under the HSCIC’s general dissemination power for a wide range of health and care-related purposes, including for commissioning for a wide range of public health purposes and for research relating to health and care services such as the epidemiological research that is needed at the earliest stages of developing new treatments.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Can the Minister reassure us that there will be no possibility of private companies obtaining the data and using them for their own purposes, instead of their being used for their original purposes in accordance with NHS data protection regulations?
Dr Poulter
I hope that I have already given the hon. Gentleman some reassurance that the data will have to be used for the benefit of the health and care service, or for the purposes of public health. They are not to be used for insurance purposes, for example. I will go on to outline some of the safeguards involved.
Barbara Keeley
Would the Minister like to comment on an announcement made at the launch of the MedRed BT health cloud—a cloud data system that is using our hospital episode statistics data—in the United States? At the launch, it was stated:
“People are using foreign data because it’s available. The UK made some gutsy decisions about data liberation. There’s political risk associated and they have a more tolerant climate over there.”
Will the Minister comment on the fact that we apparently have such a tolerant climate that MedRed and BT are now charging for access to our data on that cloud system in the United States?
Dr Poulter
I am not going to be drawn into commenting on an American system. The point is that there are strong safeguards under the 2012 Act to ensure that confidential data can be used only for the benefit of the health and care system. Of course, data that do not identify patients need to be used in a transparent way that can help to drive up care and services.
Dr Poulter
I have been generous in giving way to the hon. Lady; I hope that she will let me address her point. It is important that we have data that are open and transparent and that are used to expose the quality of care that is available from different health care providers. We are one year on from the Francis inquiry, and we need open and transparent data in order to understand and compare the quality of care services in hospitals and in different NHS health and care providers. This is about helping us to recognise what good care looks like, so that we can extend it throughout the system. It is also about exposing the few examples of bad care in an open and transparent way. If we had—
Dr Poulter
I am not going to give way. I am still addressing the hon. Lady’s point, and I am not saying anything controversial. If we had had better, more joined-up data that could have been used in a more transparent way beforehand, we might have been able to head off the events that we saw at Mid Staffs much earlier. This is about protecting patients and the public, and about using population-level data in an open and transparent way. Under the safeguards that we are introducing in the new clause, data will not be used for commercial insurance purposes. Let me give that reassurance.
Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)
Where in the new clause does it say that? Nowhere does it say that the data cannot be passed to private health insurance companies. Proposed new subsection 1A states that such information could be passed on
“for the purposes of…the provision of health care or adult social care”.
This is a very wide provision, and I see no clarity in it that delivers on the commitment that the Minister is giving to the House.
Dr Poulter
Hopefully, if I am allowed to make some progress and address the points that have been raised, I will give further reassurances a little later. It would be useful—[Interruption.] I will answer the question a little later, so there is no point in heckling or being abusive. If the right hon. Gentleman will wait, I will talk him through the Government’s amendments so that he can gain a better understanding —
Dr Poulter
No, I am not afraid to give way. The hon. Gentleman should sit down, because he often has quite enough to say, and it is not always a very valuable contribution. In this context, he may do well to listen to some of the purposes of the amendments. As I have already outlined, there are strong safeguards set out in the 2012 Act on how data can be used. Data can be used only for the benefit of the health and care system. In order to reassure the public, we have tabled amendments to clarify further how data may be used.
Speaking to a great many people in recent days, as well as considering amendments tabled by other Members, has prompted the Government to re-table the new clause in order to clarify that these kinds of data may also be disseminated for other wider public health purposes, such as research into environmental factors associated with asthma, or for healthy eating. We have ensured that those other kinds of research can benefit from the data by changing the wording in the new clause to make it clear that information may be disseminated for the purposes of
“the provision of health care or adult social care”
or “the promotion of health”. I am sure that the House will agree that it is essential that that valuable data resource is available to support a broad range of health research.
New clause 34 clarifies that in disseminating information, and indeed in carrying out any of its functions, the Health and Social Care Information Centre must have regard to the need to promote and respect the privacy of those receiving health services and adult social care in England. It also requires the HSCIC to take into account advice from the advisory committee that the Health Research Authority is required to appoint under paragraph 8 of schedule 7 to the Bill. The advice from that committee, known as the confidentiality advisory group, will provide a new level of independent scrutiny of the HSCIC’s decisions to publish or disseminate information.
Amendment 17 would also enable the confidentiality advisory group to advise the HSCIC on the exercise of functions conferred in regulations under section 251 of the National Health Service Act 2006, or more generally on decisions to disseminate information that could be used to identify individual patients. For example, when new regulations are made under section 251 of the 2006 Act that confer functions on the HSCIC, the confidentiality advisory group could advise the HSCIC on proposals to release data. New clause 34 requires the HSCIC to have regard to that external advice on its exercise of any function under the 2012 Act of publishing or otherwise disseminating information.
Amendment 18 gives the Secretary of State regulation-making powers to set out the specific criteria that the confidentiality advisory group will be required to take into account in giving advice to the Secretary of State, the Health Research Authority or the HSCIC in carrying out their duties. That provision is intended to enable regulations which would require that the confidentiality advisory group considers: that the purpose for which the data will be used should be in the public interest and for the provision of health and care services; that any approved processing must respect and promote the privacy of patients and care service users; that the purpose cannot be achieved using suitably anonymised data, rather than identifiable data; that it is not reasonably possible to gain explicit patient consent to achieve that purpose; and that the applicant requesting the data has not misused those kinds of data in the past.
That last criterion would effectively introduce a new “one strike and you’re out” deterrent. Potentially, for some organisations, the risk of no longer being able to access those kinds of data may prove a more effective sanction than the current maximum monetary penalty of £500,000 that can be imposed under the Data Protection Act 1998. Taken together, those measures provide an additional level of scrutiny and assurance to the processes of the HSCIC in publishing or disseminating information. The Government’s amendments—new clause 34 and amendments 17 and 18—provide robust assurance that those kinds of data cannot be disseminated for purposes such as commercial insurance or for assessing an individual’s mortgage application.
Andy Burnham
Before the Minister sits down, I would be very appreciative if he could direct me to the precise part of new clause 34 that prevents a private health insurance company accessing data.
Dr Poulter
It is clear that the information can be used only for the benefit of the health and care service or for the purposes of promoting health. It is about benefits to the NHS or to the health and care system. That is also what the 2012 Act identifies regarding provision of data. Let us not forget that we had to put safeguards in place because at no point did the previous Government place any restrictions on the use of data. Under the previous Government’s regulations, before this Government came to power, there was greater potential for abuse of the system. Although I am sure the previous Government would not have intended data to be used by private health care companies for insurance purposes or by others, less rigid safeguards were in place to prevent that from happening.
This Government, both with the amendments and the 2012 Act, have clearly stipulated that the information can be used only for the benefit of the health and care system or the health service. That is very clear and the previous Government never put such a provision in place. This Government have also given patients an opt-out in the use of data—something the previous Government never properly put in place. We have introduced good provisions about protecting confidentiality and using information in the NHS in a responsible manner. If the previous Government had been concerned about the use of data, they should have put in place more robust safeguards when they were in power, but they did not.
Dr Poulter
No, the hon. Lady has had many interventions; I have been very generous—[Interruption.] I know she does not like hearing about Labour’s record in government on these issues, but I am afraid she needs to. This Government are putting in place safeguards to protect patient confidentiality. The previous Government failed on that agenda, and I am proud that we are able to table these amendments, which will lead to greater reassurance.
The amendments also help to clarify how data can be disseminated to support research for health and care commissioning, health and public health purposes, medical purposes, or other purposes relating to the provision of health care, adult social care or the promotion of health.
Government amendment 8 relates to the remit of the Health Research Authority. It has always been our intention that the HRA’s functions relate to health research and adult social care research, and the amendment clarifies that remit. It makes explicit that the HRA’s functions do not generally extend to research that relates to children’s social care, if that research is solely for the purposes of children’s social care. We must recognise that research may take place across the boundaries between health or adult social care and children’s social care, and the amendment will not inhibit such research. Although the HRA’s functions will not generally extend to children’s social care, the research ethics committees that the HRA establishes or recognises under clauses 113 and 114 will be able to consider children’s social care research in the round when considering a study that also involves health research or adult social care research.
A lot of research crosses health and social care, and some of it involves children. Where such research includes health elements, it already comes to the HRA special health authority for ethical consideration. Many university ethics committees accept HRA ethics committee approval and do not require separate approval by their own ethics committees. That will continue when the HRA becomes a non-departmental public body.
Paragraph 12(5) of schedule 7 gives the HRA a general power to do anything that appears to be necessary or desirable for the purposes of, or in connection with, the exercise of its functions. That power means that HRA can, if it feels it necessary or desirable, publish guidance that relates to children’s social care research where there is also an adult social care element or a health element that falls within the HRA’s remit.
Barbara Keeley
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I understood that this debate was scrutiny of the remaining stages of an important Bill. The Minister seems to be reading his speech into the record, which for me does not stack up as a debate on the remaining stages of a very important Bill, and an aspect of it—care data—that is crucial to every NHS patient in the country.
Mr Speaker
The Minister is certainly in order and there is a continuation of Report stage tomorrow. I am sure he will want to be sensitive to the fact that other Members wish to contribute.
Dr Poulter
Indeed, Mr Speaker, and I hope that other Members will also be sensitive to that. The more interventions I take, the less opportunities there are for Members to speak. I have been very generous. I have taken interventions on a number of occasions from those on the shadow Front Bench, and from the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) and others. I have been generous with my time, but I want to preserve time for other Members to contribute to the debate, as I see you are keen for me to do, Mr Speaker.
Although the HRA amendments are important in ensuring that its remit is clearly and accurately defined, it will be able to work with those with an interest in children’s social care research when research crosses boundaries, to seek consistency in standards and to avoid unnecessary duplication.
Government amendments 15 and 16 are minor and technical. Amendment 15 is consequential to the addition of provisions on the better care fund—part 4—in Committee. It ensures that provisions on commencement cover the better care fund. Amendment 16 removes the privilege amendment inserted in the other place in accordance with the Commons’ sole privilege to deal with monetary matters.
The Government’s proposals ensure that we correct the difficulties we inherited from the previous Government in preserving confidential patient data. They ensure that we have in place a system in which NHS and care data must be used for the benefit of the health and care system and for public health purposes. They put us in a much better place to ensure that we enhance transparency and better use information to benefit patients. They ensure that we have a better basis on which to understand the basis of disease. If in the first place we had had the Health and Social Care Information Centre and the benefits we know will come from care.data, we would have been able to deal with and better combat many diseases while protecting patient confidentiality. We would have understood much more quickly the dangers of thalidomide and other drugs that were harmful to babies in utero. We would have been in a much better place to expose those examples of poor care, such as Mid Staffs; to develop national frameworks for treating diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and heart disease; and to understand what good care looks like in the treatment of those conditions by collecting data in a fundamentally better and joined-up way.
The Health and Social Care Information Centre will, for the first time, provide us with a repository for joined-up, integrated data across health and care. Hon. Members often rightly talk of integrated care, and of the benefits of joining up health and care. Unless we have the data collected to understand what good integrated care looks like, and unless we understand what measures of integration are right, we will not be able properly to inform the debate on delivering integrated care or break down the silos that have sometimes existed to the detriment of patients across the health and care system. I hope hon. Members on both sides of the House can support that. I hope they decently recognise that this Government have put in place not just a patient opt-out if they do not want their data to be shared, but strong safeguards—much stronger safeguards than the previous Government —to protect patient confidentiality.
Grahame M. Morris
In principle, I support the utilisation of truly anonymised patient data sharing for the purposes of improving public health, but I take issue with a number of the Minister’s points, not least in relation to new clause 25, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Mr Reed). Accountability is important. If the Minister and the Government are serious about addressing the public’s concern, they would ensure that the Secretary of State and Ministers are responsible rather than an unelected quango. Frankly, the Minister’s assurances at the Dispatch Box this evening, and those given to the Health Committee just a week or two ago, need to be in the Bill, so that there is a level of accountability and some comeback.
When we debated patient data sharing in Committee and, more recently, in Westminster Hall, my impression was that Ministers have tended to conflate legitimate patient privacy concerns, which are shared by hon. Members and members of the public, with the general lack of support for the utilisation of patient data for further research. They are mistaken, because right hon. and hon. Members are more or less unanimous in supporting any move that can lead to better research, improved care and increased safety.
Barbara Keeley
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, because the Minister was clearly frightened of answering questions from me and from my right hon. Friend the shadow Health Secretary. The Minister refused even to listen to the question, so I shall ask my hon. Friend: does he think that there is scope for confusion because some companies are in the market of insurance products and health and social care? The Minister would not take the question, so we do not have any answers on how a firm such as BUPA, which is already involved in research and already using the data, could be dealt with.
Grahame M. Morris
That is a perfect example and an important question that the Minister and the Government should answer. If we are to ensure that we have public trust in the data and who will use them, such questions must be answered and people be given the opportunity to consider what the Government propose.
It has become clear in recent months that the public lack confidence that the implementation of the care.data scheme as currently proposed would protect the data from inappropriate use, not least because of the point that my hon. Friend has just made. I am sure she would recall that we recently had a Health Committee session on this issue—in fact, the Minister was present—and certain assurances were given, not by the Minister but by one of his officials, that companies outside the United Kingdom would not have access to such data. The thought ran through my mind that many private health companies are global in their operations.
Andy Burnham
To add to the theme that my hon. Friend is developing, is not one of the problems with care.data that we have had so many statements from Ministers and officials that have not in the end come to be true? At the last Health questions, the Secretary of State said that a leaflet would be sent to every home in the land to explain what was happening. That also was not true. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is bringing the whole scheme into disrepute?
Grahame M. Morris
My right hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head, because there has been a catalogue of mismanagement. What we need to do if we believe in the importance of such a database is to ensure that we rebuild public trust. The Government have an opportunity to do that, but it will not be a simple matter. We have to look carefully at the implications of what the Government propose and give the necessary assurances.
The assurance that the official gave to the Health Committee had a gap that a coach and horses could be driven through. Several multinational companies could get round it by establishing a subsidiary based in the UK that would have access to the data, if that were the only safeguard.
Mr Dorrell
I want to return to a theme that we were discussing in an earlier debate this evening. The true nature of the hon. Gentleman’s concern is unclear. If his concern is that sensitive patient information should be made available only on the basis that the identity of the individual can never be traced and the data remain properly anonymised and confidential, I think that concern would be shared on both sides of the House. But is that his real concern, or is it that the information might be used by a private sector body for the purpose of improving the delivery of health care? I am not clear, provided that the information is anonymised and patient identity is properly secured, what his objection could be.
Grahame M. Morris
I thought I was being fairly clear. In the debate on the earlier group of amendments, we discussed the privatisation of the clinical commissioning function. My concern is that that would lead to greater fragmentation, not greater co-operation. On data sharing, I think it was my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) who gave the example of a questionnaire she was asked to fill in by her GP, which contained questions relating to alcohol consumption, smoking and so on. If that information was made available to a private health care company and, as a consequence, premiums were increased, people would have concerns. The Minister said that that has been ruled out and that it would not happen, but it is an example of why such concerns have been raised.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
It is very important for there to be as much protection for the individual and the patient as possible. I assure the hon. Gentleman that my medical records are particularly uninteresting, but I would not want them to be leaked to an insurance company seeking to make money out of them or trying to change my premium. I am sure that that is very important in people’s minds.
Grahame M. Morris
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point which echoes a point made on the Labour Benches a few moments ago. The problem is that a number of private health care companies are also insurance companies, so it would be quite a task to ensure that data are not shared with companies that might have a commercial interest in them. To restrict access in the way we would all want is not as simple as the Government would have us believe.
Andrew George
The hon. Gentleman and I often agree on these issues, but I am slightly concerned. Of course we want reassurances, and while we have the pause we should seek further reassurances on the anonymisation of data and that they will not be misused. How far is he prepared to push this point? Is he prepared to push it to the extent that the initiative falls, with all the consequences for the lack of progress in advances in medical care? In 10 years’ time we could be talking about hundreds of thousands of lives that could have been saved as a result of pressing on with this very important development.
Grahame M. Morris
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. It is not my intention to do that, but we have to recognise that the public awareness campaign—the Government’s early assurances about leaflets and letters—has been wholly inadequate. At a time when it is important for the Government to instil public confidence in the scheme, they keep doing things that undermine public confidence, for example by giving the hated company Atos—if you do not mind me using the term, Mr Speaker, because of the debacle in the Department for Work and Pensions—the contract to extract the data. There seems to have been a catalogue of errors.
I accept that this proposal has the potential to be a huge step forward. The Minister said it was not revolutionary, but I am quite often in favour of things that are revolutionary. It is revolutionary, because previous data collections from a hospital-based setting, from secondary care, have been largely episodic. This scheme will harvest data from GPs and primary care to follow the whole of the patient journey, and to identify trends and follow-ups. That is a revolutionary step forward, provided we have the necessary safeguards and assurances, and that we rebuild public trust. I am not suggesting that the scheme is unworkable and cannot be reformed, but there is a huge job to do to ensure that we restore public confidence.
Grahame M. Morris
I wanted to mention an example that has been presented to me in relation to rare illnesses. It is suggested that a patient could never be identified from the data, but identification might be possible in the case of very rare conditions, particularly if pharmaceutical companies had their own databases. We need some form of protection to cover those circumstances as well.
Barbara Keeley
I thank my hon. Friend: he is being very generous in giving way. Does he agree that scope is an issue? The Hospital Episode Statistics database was an administrative database, and that is what our data were being used for. My hon. Friend has made an important point about the loss of trust. When did any of us sign up to having our data used to recalculate the cost of insurance cover for long-term illness? When did we sign up to have it sold on a chargeable basis by BT and by MedRed, on its cloud system in the United States? Once control has gone, it is possible for the scope to vary all over the place.
Grahame M. Morris
That is a good point. It is very important for the Government to lay down parameters for the scope.
The sharing of medical data has a fantastic potential to do good, as long as the necessary safeguards are there, but if it is mishandled, it also has the potential to do great harm. Patient data consist of very confidential information, which could prove damaging to the public if it were to end up in the wrong hands. We have already seen examples of that. I share the public’s fear that the Government are not seeking appropriate safeguards in respect of highly personal and sensitive information. Despite the Minister’s assurances about new clause 34, I do not think that it goes far enough.
Let me return to the issue of accountability. The benefits for companies that seek to misuse or leak patient data, for example, are considerable. The Minister has ruled out insurance companies, but I am worried about private health care firms. The pharmaceutical industry could profit from the re-identification of patient records, and I believe that the absence of parliamentary accountability to which I referred earlier, and a lack of clear and harsh penalties for those who misuse data, are undermining trust in what could be a highly beneficial scheme. Subsection (2) of new clause 25 defines misuse, and subsection (3) gives an indication of the penalties that would be applied. I think that they might act as a deterrent.
Mr Jamie Reed
My hon. Friend is making an excellent, intelligent and informed speech. The charge has been made that pushing our proposals too far risks scuppering the project, but is it not the case that the more safeguards we can introduce to reassure the public, the better the prospects of its success will be—and, moreover, the greater the data sample will be, and the better the system will be as a result?
Grahame M. Morris
I entirely agree. I think that that is vital, because, as we have seen in the case of politicians following the expenses scandal, once public trust has been lost, it is a huge task to win that trust back. There is a mountain to be climbed. I therefore think it important that we get this right.
The Government have an opportunity to pause the implementation of the Bill in order to consult properly, and, in the Bill itself, to address issues that have been raised by Members in all parts of the House and by other interested parties. I believe that if there is to be public confidence in the scheme, the Government should make a gesture by supporting Labour’s new clauses, particularly new clause 25. Given that the misuse and identification of data are the prime concerns of the public, I think that it would be eminently sensible to make them an offence. That is not rocket science, is it? If that is the problem, why do we not address it directly by creating an offence? Similarly, if an organisation makes applications for data from the Health and Social Care Information Centre, it should have to disclose any previous convictions under that offence. I am a big supporter of transparency and the extension of freedom of information. Private health care companies should disclose information that is relevant in those circumstances.
It seems bizarre to insist that the public should allow their private information to be shared with organisations that are allowed to hide their chequered pasts in some cases behind the cloak of commercial confidentiality. Parliamentary accountability, too, should be introduced to the decision-making process. The Secretary of State should retain the duty to approve any applications. The buck should stop with the Secretary of State. If there is a serious commitment to win back the public’s trust on care.data, the buck should stop with the Secretary of State, rather than with a big and unaccountable quango.
It would be of great benefit to the public if data sharing were exercised in an accountable and secure manner. I have always been an advocate of investment in public health. For that to be effective, we need an evidence base on which to plan interventions. The scheme is set to be disrupted unless the Government can demonstrate that they are serious about protecting patients’ privacy.
Oliver Colvile
Does the hon. Gentleman think that there will be a problem with patients sharing that information with their pharmacists if that meant that they were going to get better more quickly?
Grahame M. Morris
On an individual basis, I do not see a problem with that. The problem arises when dealing with large volumes of harvested data that include not just primary care records of patients in the community but hospital records, where pharmaceutical companies are perhaps able to benefit. Whether that is in patients’ best interests needs further consideration. I do not think that there is any such concern about individual conversations with GPs or pharmacists, but there are still major holes in the Government’s proposals. They need to be tightened further. A good starting point would be Labour’s new clause 25.
Paul Burstow
The hon. Gentleman has been incredibly gracious in giving way on several occasions. He has said that new clause 25 should be commended. I wonder whether he has considered amendment (b), which suggests that one of the other issues about safeguarding data is people being satisfied of the competence of the organisations that will receive that data and that they comply fully with the data protection obligations.
Grahame M. Morris
I have considered that, and that is an important point. Compliance is important. Those issues should be addressed in the Bill. If we are to ensure that there is public trust, those points must be addressed.
Mr Jamie Reed
Does my hon. Friend share my concern and that of many GPs that the lack of necessary safeguards in the Bill may have an unintended consequence, particularly among the hardest to reach groups in society? Fear about the lack of safeguards in the Bill may stop them from accessing GPs and sharing their details and problems with them.
Grahame M. Morris
That is a huge danger. We have an opportunity to address that in this House this evening and when we consider the Bill further tomorrow. I personally am not advocating that people sign up to the opt-out clauses. That is important, but we need assurances to be able with confidence to support the Bill and the data collection proposals.
Mr Speaker
Order. One might have thought the intervention of the hon. Member for Copeland (Mr Reed) was exquisitely timed.
Bill to be further considered tomorrow.
Business without Debate
Delegated Legislation
Mr Speaker
With the leave of the House, we shall take motions 5 and 6 on family proceedings together.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),
Family Proceedings
That the draft Access to Justice Act 1999 (Destination of Appeals) (Family Proceedings) Order 2014, which was laid before this House on 27 January, be approved.
Family Proceedings
That the draft Crime and Courts Act 2013 (Family Court: Consequential Provision) Order 2014, which was laid before this House on 27 January, be approved. —(John Penrose.)
Question agreed to.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),
Family Court
That the draft Justices’ Clerks and Assistants Rules 2014, which were laid before this House on 27 January, be approved. —(John Penrose.)
Question agreed to.
European Union Documents
Administration
Statutory Instruments (Joint Committee)
Welsh Affairs
Petitions
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
It is with great delight that I take this opportunity of presenting Parliament with a petition by about 1,000 of my constituents within the Plymouth travel-to-work area who are concerned about the north corner quay and landing stage in Devonport.
The petition states:
The Petition of residents of Devonport and Plymouth, and others,
Declares that the Petitioners are concerned about the condition of the North Corner Quay and Landing Stage, Devonport.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government under his powers contained in Part IV, Clause 48 of the Plymouth City Council Act (1987) to encourage Plymouth City Council to restore and repair North Corner Quay and Landing Stage as contained in Part IV, Clause 26 of the said Act.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
[P001324]
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
Her Majesty’s Government have been fantastic in saving my constituency from development in the green belt, and the Communities and Local Government Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), has been particularly good in recently stopping these incursions, but my constituents in South Stoke are especially concerned about development that may take place there and I have 1,386 signatures to this petition. That number is easy to remember because, 1386 was the year of the treaty of Windsor.
The petition states:
The Humble Petition of the residents of the parish of South Stoke and its neighbouring parishes and wards of Bath and North East Somerset, here represented by South Stoke Parish Council and The South of Bath Alliance,
Sheweth that it is the intention of Bath and North East Somerset District Council's Amended Core Strategy to develop the land known as the Odd Down/ South Stoke Plateau with the building of 300 new homes.
Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your honourable House ask Her Majesty’s Government to recognise the importance of the openness of this land, which forms part of the Setting of the Bath World Heritage Site and of the Wansdyke Scheduled Ancient Monument, and to maintain the current Statutory protections of the Green Belt and Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty designations for all of the South Stoke Plateau and so maintain the site free of development in perpetuity.
And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c
[P001330]
St Helier Hospital
(10 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
At the beginning of this month, on a crisp, cold Saturday morning, I joined a group of residents outside our local St Helier hospital to mark a sad moment in its history. For the past four years, St Helier has been adorned by a 1,000-square-feet banner, proudly saying, “Coming soon—We’re spending £219m on a major development of St Helier hospital”. The residents and I were there to see that banner taken down, and to mark the promise of a better hospital finally being taken away. The story of St Helier is a long one. I have raised it in this House on several occasions. This was a low point, but I fear that it may get lower, and the result of today’s debate does not exactly inspire confidence.
St Helier was built in the 1930s, at the same time as the St Helier housing estate that encompasses it. At that time, it was the biggest housing estate in Europe. The hospital was built there for a reason: it was where the health needs of the surrounding community were. St Helier hospital has had an interesting history. In the second world war, its bold white exterior was painted green owing to concerns that German bombers would use it for target practice or to line up their bombing missions on London. Although neighbouring buildings were destroyed by bombers, St Helier thankfully survived and has continued to serve the community ever since.
St Helier has had its troubles. In the mid-1990s, there was outrage when it was discovered that people were left to die on trolleys abandoned in the corridor. Back then, under-investment in the NHS of the John Major Government was not unusual. If it was bad on the wards, however, what was happening behind the scenes was almost as disturbing.
Even though Mitcham and Morden has always been the most deprived part of the old health area of Sutton, Merton and Surrey, it has always been the poor relation. In my almost 17 years as an MP, and for many before that, I have never known of anyone living in Mitcham and Morden to sit on the board of any NHS body. As a result, we have always had a Cinderella service. No one speaks up for our patients, and we are always first to lose out and last to gain. It was no surprise, therefore, when I discovered recently that health bosses had held secret meetings in the mid-1990s to discuss plans to close St Helier and move services to Croydon. Thankfully, once Labour came to power in 1997, this went no further, but the tone was set.
Not long afterwards, it was suggested that St Helier should merge with the hospital in Epsom. Such a merger was a little unusual, but Epsom was struggling financially, and we were persuaded that a merger would make both hospitals more resilient. The two hospitals were not a great match. People living in Epsom are relatively wealthy, and a little older. The area around St Helier is more urban, ethnically mixed, younger and has more health problems associated with poverty. Nevertheless, we accepted the advice, but it soon became clear that we had been sold a pup.
A new review, “Better Healthcare Closer to Home” was launched. This was in a time of plenty, the early 2000s, when health spending was on the rise, so a grand scheme was drawn up, in which St Helier and Epsom would both close, replaced by a new state-of-the-art hospital in Belmont, a very leafy, very wealthy community two miles south of Sutton. Aside from the terrible impact of closing St Helier, I never thought that the scheme was workable; it was too big, too unrealistic and lacked one key ingredient—any public demand for it.
Various bureaucrats argued that the site of a hospital is not important, because new community primary care services, such as GPs and local care centres, would see the patients that normally go to hospitals instead. The public never agreed, and in fact the reverse has happened: the number of people who would rather go to hospitals is rising. The public consultation at the time clearly showed that the most popular site for a hospital with an A and E was St Helier. The public knew that the people who need hospital the most are the most disadvantaged, with the worst health. They are the most likely to need A and E and the most likely to need acute maternity services.
Everyone could see that St Helier was the best location for a hospital if we wanted to reduce health inequalities, and it was backed by all the MPs in Sutton, Merton and Wandsworth. Local managers overruled us and, even though their initial assessments showed that St Helier was a 7% better option than Belmont, they voted for Belmont instead. Thankfully, in those days we had a Secretary of State for Health who was prepared to step in and stand up for the NHS. The health managers’ decision was finally called in by Labour councillors in the London borough of Merton, and the then Secretary of State decided to save St Helier, recognising that the area around St Helier had the greatest health needs in the whole catchment area and people there had up to 10 years’ less life expectancy. In contrast, Belmont is one of the wealthiest areas in the country. Indeed, people living there also made it clear they did not want a major new hospital built in their backyard. So we were all delighted when the then Government came down firmly on the side of reducing health inequalities and chose St Helier.
In early 2010, that decision was further boosted when a subsequent Health Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), announced the £219 million renovation. At the time, we were all very aware that the economy could no longer afford the same generous public sector funding we had in the mid-2000s. Decisions had to make financial sense and, in the case of the £219 million, the numbers stacked up. As well as improving people’s health, the scheme was shown to offer value for money. It would mean new wards, with single rooms to cut down on infections and improve patient privacy, along with various other improvements. The scheme was so well thought out that just months later it also gained the support of the new coalition Government—the Chancellor still includes the funding in the Treasury’s books—but it was not long before St Helier’s future was again at risk.
In 2011, the local NHS admitted that it had received Government instructions
“to deliver £370 million savings each year...a reduction of around 24% in their costs.”
A new body was soon set up, this time called Better Services Better Value, or BSBV— it might properly be abbreviated to just BS for all the good it has done. Its task soon became clear: to close services such as accident and emergency, and maternity units, in one or more hospital. At the same time, finally recognising that they served different demographic groups, the St Helier and Epsom hospitals started to de-merge from the trust. Both had found new trusts willing to merge with them, St Helier with St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust and Epsom with Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals NHS Trust, but, thanks to BSBV, those new mergers soon broke down. Nobody wanted to merge with a hospital that was under threat, particularly when it was revealed that Epsom’s debts were far worse than originally thought.
Originally, BSBV would look only at south-west London, covering St Helier, Kingston, Croydon and St George’s in Tooting; one of the four would lose its accident and emergency unit. But after the de-merger fell apart, the review was extended into Surrey, and two out of five hospitals were to be downgraded—inevitably, BSBV recommended that St Helier should be one. Not only would its A and E and maternity units go, but so, too, would its intensive care unit, paediatric centre, renal unit and 390 in-patient beds.
I have always said that the sums do not add up. Some 82,000 patients go to St Helier’s A and E each year, with the NHS saying that figure will rise by 20%—100 emergency patients are admitted every day. Neighbouring hospitals are already overcrowded, and are more expensive per patient, so it was never clear how the other hospitals could meet clinical targets, let alone cut costs, if they had to treat St Helier’s patients as well as their own. Figures quoted by BSBV—that an astonishing 60% of patients would use primary care instead of A and E departments—were ridiculed by the National Clinical Advisory Team, who said:
“Elsewhere in the UK a consistent finding is...far lower, usually...15-20%. Reconfiguration based on the higher figure may not achieve the anticipated benefits.”
In fact, NCAT went a lot further than that, saying:
“Successful implementation...depends on a multitude of supporting improvements...that are not well defined in the proposals.”
Given the growing birth rate and the higher cost of giving birth in all other hospitals, closing St Helier’s maternity unit was also never going to deliver clinical targets or cut costs. Experts say that maternity units should not deliver more than 6,000 babies per year. However, if St Helier closed, the remaining hospitals would have to deliver 6,500 babies each per year, plus 2,500 in midwife units and nearly 1,000 home births. It was no surprise, therefore, that NCAT said the plans were
“based on an optimistic view of capacity.”
Everyone in my local community knew the plans were bonkers. Local campaigners such as Sally Kenny, a former deputy head and Lower Morden resident, set up local groups to fight the plans. Sally has printed thousands of “Save St Helier” posters that are currently in windows across Morden and St Helier. People cannot drive through the area without seeing the words “We Love St Helier” displayed on garden stakes.
As well as a petition signed by more than 30,000 people, thousands of local residents attended a protest picnic organised by local mums, where the leader of Merton council, Stephen Alambritis, a former football referee, waved a red card at the plans. Merton council has always shown its support. Last year, it passed a strongly worded motion backed by Labour, Liberal Democrat, Conservative and Independent councillors, saying any decision on St Helier must go to the Secretary of State. Thankfully, salvation came from an unlikely source—a clinical commissioning group in Surrey.
In Merton, the new system of CCGs has not been a great advert for the Government’s reforms. Last May, I attended one of the worst public meetings I have ever been to—and that is really saying something. Merton’s CCG was due to decide St Helier’s future, but it would allow only a handful of the hundreds of people who came to the meeting into the public gallery. The chair would not allow cameras or recordings, and the microphones did not work. Members of the CCG refused to register their personal interests, even though it was alleged that some would gain personally if St Helier were shut and services were moved to other providers such as private companies or GP surgeries. Then, just as they were due to make a decision, they suddenly walked out of the room to boos and shouts of “cowards”. Some said that they had adjourned the meeting to a quiet staircase, others that they went to the kitchen. Wherever they went, they made the decision there, in secret, without any public witnesses, to accept plans to close services at St Helier and to go to public consultation.
If Merton’s CCG was not exactly the blueprint of an open, transparent community service, thankfully others did not follow suit. Having seen the power of GPs in Lewisham, the CCG in Surrey Downs, recognised that BSBV was barking up the wrong tree and voted no. As a result, earlier this year, BSBV was wound up; it will not be mourned. However, the threat still hangs over us.
I have been shown a letter from NHS England to the CCGs complaining about their decision not to approve closures at St Helier. The letter says:
“Your approach carries significant and unacceptable risk, both financially and clinically.”
Castigating the CCGs for their decision, it goes on:
“We consider your proposed approach would make it difficult for South West London CCGs to formulate a coherent strategic plan.”
According to NHS England, the decision
“carries unacceptable risks to your ability to develop and deliver a strategic plan. We also believe the approach carries significant operational risks. Firstly that your providers will not be able to meet the London Quality Standards...Secondly, that providers will not be able to recover their costs against income and therefore...will be unable to become Foundation Trusts.”
Most damning of all, it says:
“This could be interpreted as commissioners planning for clinical and financial failure in some of its providers.”
That letter is very revealing. It proves that those in charge still cannot bring themselves to rule out the possibility of St Helier closing. They are planning to fail, and if they do not fail, they will not allow St Helier to become a foundation trust anyway. Either way, the hospital will fail. That indicates that the announcement not to close St Helier is not real. As if we needed more evidence that the Government are not committed to St Helier, we heard, just a few weeks later, that the £219 million had been withdrawn. After I had repeatedly asked about the lack of progress, the head of Merton’s CCG finally conceded the truth. Ruefully, she admitted that the work was now “probably unaffordable” and no longer featured as
“one of the...scenarios being worked up by the Trust at this stage.”
The whole community knows what is going on. St Helier is not “safe”. It does not have the Government’s backing. If the Government truly still supported St Helier, why is it not full steam ahead with a scheme that has funding from the Treasury and that has proven its clinical value? They are failing to plan, and planning to fail. All this ends in one place: the demise of St Helier. If St Helier loses emergency services, 200,000 people will face longer journeys in an emergency. A and Es across south London will struggle to cope with the extra workload, and that will affect millions of patients, including the Minister’s constituents.
The Minister has a chance today to offer some hope. She is a significant person. A word from her could make all the difference. All she has to say is that St Helier will stay open and that she will not allow it to lose its A and E, its maternity unit or any of its other services. She can say today that the £219 million must be spent. When that money was announced four years ago, construction was due to begin in 2012. Nothing has happened, but this evening she can turn nothing into something with just a word. She will probably say it is for others to decide, but that is her decision. A decision not to act is just as much a decision as any other. What she should do is show leadership, because leaders decide. Without ministerial commitment to St Helier, it is clear where this will end. They are planning to fail, and that is why the fight goes on.
All the while, the population in south London is rising, demand for hospital services is increasing, demand for A and E is going up by 20%, and the birth rate is rocketing. Doctors oppose the closure of services, Merton council unambiguously opposes any closure, and all parties want to save St Helier. We thought things were bleak before; they are just as bleak now.
All the while, instead of focusing on improving the NHS, this Government have focused on top-down reorganisations. The UK Statistics Authority has made it clear that the Prime Minister has broken his election pledge to increase health spending. If St Helier loses its A and E or countless other services, my constituents will know why. They are angry. In Mitcham and Morden we demand nothing less than a moratorium on A and E closures. We want our hospital, St Helier, to continue. The German bombers never destroyed it, nor should this Government. The Minister needs to say, “Yes, the £219 million is still there, and yes, the building work will start now.”
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) on securing one of a number of debates that she has led in the House on this issue. I know that it is important to her—we have had many private conversations about it over the past few years—and to her constituents. She has great faith in my powers, but I fear that so soon after the collapse of Better Services Better Value, I am inevitably not in a position to say anything particularly definite to her tonight. However, I will try to respond to some of the points she makes and explain to the House what the road map ahead now looks like. Overall, although I understand her frustration, which is felt by many of us who represent south-west London, I think her analysis is a little bleak, but I will try to give her some assurance about the potential for the future, if not about some of the specific points that she asked me to address.
Before I comment on the issues that the hon. Lady has raised, I want to pay tribute to all those who work in the NHS in her constituency and in all our constituencies in south-west London. Throughout all the uncertainties of the past few years, they have continued to show their commitment to providing first-class services to all those in their care. For that, we thank them.
As I said, I share the hon. Lady’s frustration about this programme—I say that straight away on the record—as, I am sure, do all those of us affected in the area covered by the six clinical commissioning groups. For many of us, having spent so much time in consultations, meetings and discussions, it is, to say the least, very frustrating to find ourselves in this position on BSBV.
I give the hon. Lady the assurance that the Department of Health remains committed to investing in NHS infrastructure. The most recent Government spending review has ensured that capital spending in the NHS is protected in real terms. That means that the NHS will be getting a real-terms increase in spending in 2015-16 compared with 2014-15. There is, therefore, money available for capital infrastructure, but I realise that the hon. Lady’s interest is in her own local capital investment.
At the same time, I fully understand the hon. Lady’s disappointment that Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust has been unable to progress its plans for developing St Helier. However, as the hon. Lady knows, the problem is that in the absence of a local agreed strategy for south-west London and a decision on which services will be located at the redeveloped site, the trust has recently decided to reconsider the scheme.
As the hon. Lady is also aware, the proposed redevelopment has been closely linked to Better Services Better Value and the review of clinical services right across south-west London. That has gone on for so long that, in many ways, events have overtaken it and there is now a need to look at it afresh.
The six clinical commissioning groups in south-west London announced on 18 February that they did not propose to continue with the BSBV programme or to consult on the options that emerged from it, so they have now been withdrawn. As a result of that decision by the CCGs, the trust now needs to reconsider the business case for the hospital redevelopment and it plans to work with the local CCGs to see whether they can agree a level of investment in the hospital that is affordable and that ensures that the services provided are sustainable.
The trust has confirmed that over the next five years it plans to invest up to £78 million in modernising its estate, improving facilities for patients and updating IT systems and equipment. I think, therefore, that the picture the hon. Lady painted was a little bleak, because it suggested that there was to be no investment at all, when in fact the trust has announced that it intends to go ahead with plans that will enhance some of the services for her constituents.
Siobhain McDonagh
It is my understanding that any capital works of that size would have to be approved by the Department of Health and the Treasury, and as yet I do not believe they have been drawn up to the extent that they have any such permission, so at the moment this is wishful thinking on the part of the trust.
Jane Ellison
The trust has announced its intentions, and a proper process will be followed. I am trying to make the point that it is wrong to suggest that there are no plans to invest in and enhance services at St Helier. That process will be followed and we will respond in due course. That is my understanding of the trust’s plans and it wants to progress with them.
Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) for calling for this debate. Will the Minister use her good offices to ask the trust to set out very clearly to all hon. Members representing constituencies with an interest in St Helier its plans and the timeline for this capital investment?
Jane Ellison
That is an entirely reasonable request and I will, of course, convey it to the trust following this debate.
The local CCGs have listened to feedback from local people and they have now told us that they want to look at local health services in a more holistic way. Although they have decided against proceeding with BSBV, the local CCGs have unanimously supported the clinical case for change in south-west London and propose to use the detailed analysis provided by that exercise to plan their future strategy. I accept that that is a broad-brush explanation and that we have yet to see the detail, but that is essentially the direction of travel. Obviously we are not as far forward as we would have wanted to be after all the consideration given to the issue over the past few years.
The CCGs have also made it clear that if they do not address the challenges identified under BSBV or, at a national level, those in NHS England’s “Call to Action”, local services might decline in quality and not be able to meet the required safety standards. The CCGs have agreed that all future hospital services should be commissioned against the London quality standards and that all hospitals must provide seven-day-a-week, consultant-led services.
I referred earlier to events overtaking the BSBV programme, and the CCGs need to take into consideration some of the more recent developments, not least Sir Bruce Keogh’s review of urgent and emergency care. We need to look at the whole of the south-west London health economy in the light of those new expectations, particularly that for seven-day-a-week, consultant-led services. That is a challenge right across the NHS, not least for those of us in south-west London. Hospitals are expected to comply fully with the recommendations set out in the Keogh review and, of course, to be financially sustainable.
Should the outcome of discussions mean major changes at any trust in south-west London, proposals will, of course, be subject to public consultation. Most importantly, the local NHS has stated that it will involve local people in the work to develop these new solutions to the longer-term challenges faced by the NHS in the area.
As well as involving local people, it is absolutely essential to involve local Members of Parliament. I take the point made by the right hon. Gentleman in his intervention. Whenever I meet representatives of NHS London, as I do from time to time—another meeting is in the diary—I always stress the importance of liaising very closely with Members of Parliament so that they can best represent their constituents and make sure that they are fully in the picture about developments. For the record, I was not particularly impressed by the notice I got of BSBV not going forward, given that I have to respond in this House about it, and I have made that view clear to some of the people in my local area.
Epsom and St Helier trust has made it clear that the broad range of in-patient, out-patient and day services remains available at its two hospital sites. Local CCGs will work together—the new umbrella name is South West London Collaborative Commissioning—to develop a five-year commissioning strategy. The trust will work with its commissioners in the coming months to contribute to those plans. I understand that the trust expects to see the strategy in June, which will give it a clear idea of the future direction of local health services and its role in delivering them. As local Members of Parliament, we all expect to see the strategy at the same time.
Once a decision has been made on which services will be located at St Helier, the trust will need to revisit its original business case for the redevelopment of the site. I realise that that is frustrating, after everything that local people have campaigned on, but that is in its nature: it was only ever an outline business case. Any new or updated business case for redeveloping St Helier would initially need to be considered by the NHS Trust Development Authority, which is responsible for approving capital funding and ensuring that the repayments are affordable for the trust. As much is likely to have changed in the four years since the business case was last considered, it will probably be reviewed again by the Department of Health and the Treasury.
It is obviously essential that any options must be sustainable in the long term, both financially and, as I mentioned in relation to the Keogh review, clinically. When local consultations have taken place and have determined a sustainable service configuration for the locality and the hospital, we anticipate that requests for capital funding will be submitted to the Department of Health for consideration.
In conclusion, I urge the hon. Lady and other Members of the House to continue to represent their constituents, engage with the process and participate in future consultations. What we all want to emerge from the process is a sustainable, safe and excellent local health economy for south-west London that works to the most modern standards of care and is sustainable for the long term.
Question put and agreed to.
Ministerial Correction
(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Unmanned Air Vehicles
(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Watson
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence with reference to the answer of 18 April 2013, Official Report, column 527W, on unmanned air vehicles, (1) how many Army personnel have received unmanned aerial systems training; and what proportion of those trained personnel currently operate unmanned aerial systems in (a) the UK, (b) Afghanistan and (c) the Middle East; [R]
Mr Robathan
Mini unmanned aerial system (UAS) pilots receive a minimum of 71 days training. Tactical UAS pilots receive a minimum of 91 days training.
Since April 1999, 461 students have passed the UAS ground school course which is the precursor to UAS pilot training. Of these 140 UAS pilots (30% of those trained) are currently based in the UK and are qualified on systems which are flown in UK airspace for training purposes only. Up to 21 UAS pilots (5%) are deployed in the middle east for training purposes only. 48 UAS pilots (10%) are currently deployed in Afghanistan. The remaining 252 (55%) are either no longer in the Army, no longer employed as UAS pilots, or operate Hermes 450 which is not cleared for UK flying.
The Army has a process for evaluating every course for its effectiveness and relevance so that it can respond to changes in operational need.
The correct answer should have been:
Mr Robathan
Mini unmanned aircraft system (UAS) pilots receive a minimum of 71 days training. Tactical UAS pilots receive a minimum of 91 days training.
The number of soldiers and officers trained in UAS operations from April 1999 to October 2013 is 1,062. This includes all personnel who have completed basic UAS training at any point since 1999 including those who have undertaken conversion training from earlier systems or refresher training. Some individuals may therefore be counted twice, but it is not possible to identify these separately. At October 2013 146 personnel were deployed on UAS operations in Afghanistan. This was 13% of those who have ever been trained in UAS operations. All other trained personnel who were still serving were in the UK.
The Army has a process for evaluating every course for its effectiveness and relevance so that it can respond to changes in operational need.
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Backbench Business
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Female Genital Mutilation
(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the e-petition relating to stopping female genital mutilation in the UK.
I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Robertson. Shortly, I think we shall be joined by the Minister for Crime Prevention, the Minister responsible for this area—[Interruption.] Indeed, he is rushing into Westminster Hall as I speak. Well done to the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) for sitting in for him; I think he was trying out the chair. I am also pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones).
This is a critical debate. It takes place on the eve of the start of the first parliamentary inquiry into female genital mutilation—an inquiry that begins tomorrow, with the hearings initiated by the Home Affairs Committee. This is the right time for Parliament to discuss this issue.
I begin by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, for granting this debate and I also thank the other members of her Committee. I appeared before it for the first time to ask for the debate and I was delighted that its members were able to say yes. I particularly thank the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham), who I think is planning to attend this debate. She certainly supports it; she supported the application for it and we would not have secured it without her, so I am extremely grateful to her.
I also thank the members of the Home Affairs Committee, who all co-signed the application for the debate: my hon. Friends the Members for Dudley North (Ian Austin), for Newport West (Paul Flynn), for South Ribble (Lorraine Fullbrook), for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) and for Walsall North (Mr Winnick), and the hon. Members for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison), for Northampton North (Michael Ellis), for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless).
This is the first debate in this House on this subject since the relevant legislation was updated in 2003. I cannot think of a crime as horrible as FGM that has not been the subject of a prosecution since it became illegal. On numerous occasions, Members take part in debates on Home Office and other Bills, passing legislation and bringing in new offences, but this is the only crime that has not been prosecuted.
We need to look carefully at the reasons for the lack of prosecutions; we need to hear, as we will during the Select Committee hearings, the testimony of individual survivors and others. We also need to hear from Members who have raised the issue on so many occasions during questions—including today’s questions to the Home Secretary, when it was raised four times. Although some people may feel that the crime is hidden, it is very much on Parliament’s agenda.
The World Health Organisation estimates that 140 million girls and women alive today have been forced to undergo FGM. It further estimates that 66,000 women resident in England and Wales in 2001 had undergone FGM. There is another estimate that more than 24,000 girls in the United Kingdom are at risk from FGM.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I do not know whether my right hon. Friend is aware that some time ago I tabled a number of parliamentary questions to try to find out whether the lack of prosecutions was because the Crown Prosecution Service was not willing to prosecute or because the police were not passing such offences to it; it looked as if very few cases were being referred to the CPS for consideration.
What assessment has my right hon. Friend made of the action plan from the Director of Public Prosecutions? When it was launched—quite a while ago now—I thought it was a really positive step forward in encouraging the police to report more cases of FGM to the CPS, but nothing seems to have happened as a result of it.
Keith Vaz
My hon. Friend is right. We are concerned that despite the action plan—welcome though it was; it provided a framework for prosecutions—there have still been no prosecutions. One of the witnesses for our inquiry will be the new DPP, Alison Saunders. Unless we find out the reasons why there have not been prosecutions for FGM here when there have been prosecutions for it in other countries, we will not be able to find those who are responsible for it here and bring them to justice.
The three figures that I gave the House—140 million girls worldwide now, 66,000 women resident in England and Wales in 2001 and 24,000 girls at risk in the UK today—are only estimates, and we must show caution when we cite them. Indeed, high-profile figures from the communities affected by FGM have cast doubt on some of them. Today in The Guardian, Nadifa Mohamed, the famous Somali novelist, suggested that the estimates are “crude” and
“based on unreliable data…several years out of date”.
We rely on the estimates because they are the only ones we have, but we need to ensure that we are cautious about how we use them. What we are trying to do in Westminster Hall today, and what I hope the Select Committee will attempt to do in its hearings, is to get to the facts, so that we have some accurate way of knowing who and how many people are at risk. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) said, every Member in Westminster Hall today knows that there have been no prosecutions for FGM, and I am sure that they will repeat that fact in their contributions. We need to find out why.
I also commend the work of Leyla Hussein. Her documentary “The Cruel Cut” went a long way towards raising awareness of this issue. The Home Affairs Committee is due to view it shortly as part of its inquiry and Leyla Hussein will be giving evidence to us tomorrow. The issue of awareness, exemplified by the number of people who signed the petition, is extremely important. If people are not aware, they cannot be concerned; if they are not concerned, we cannot catch those responsible.
I am pleased that the Minister for Crime Prevention is in Westminster Hall today, because he has been very clear about this issue. He is a special Minister because he says what he thinks, does not read from a script and is not one of those robotic Ministers who will accept everything that the civil servants say. He makes up his own mind—he is going red, but I think that is true—and is pretty blunt. He was very blunt when he said that he is not prepared to worry about cultural sensitivities and that if a crime is being committed, it needs to be investigated.
This will be one of those rare debates in which every single speaker agrees that something needs to be done, although, of course, we need to await the outcome of the Home Affairs Committee inquiry and the other reviews before we find out precisely what needs to be done.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend’s Select Committee is to be congratulated on its important inquiry. However, is not one of the challenges in securing prosecutions the natural unwillingness of young girls to inform on their families?
Keith Vaz
Yes. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She is a distinguished Member—a former shadow Public Health Minister and a campaigner. She is viewed with huge respect in the community, and she is right to raise this issue. It is not just about one community; it is generally about families, and there is the reluctance that she mentioned. Somehow we need to approach the families, and I think we will develop that idea further in our contributions today.
Children should not need to give evidence against their parents. That is the sensitivity; it is not a cultural sensitivity. The issue is to do with how the prosecuting authorities need to approach the subject, but that should not be used as an excuse—I am sure my hon. Friend would not want it to be—for why there have been no prosecutions.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this vital debate.
I started practising as a prosecution barrister in 1990. Prosecuting FGM cases involves the great difficulty of obtaining the evidence and securing convictions, and at that time there was the same difficulty with sexual abuse and child abuse cases. People were only beginning to come forward then, but the situation has changed during the past 20 years. When the right hon. Gentleman and his Committee consider this matter, they should learn the lessons of the ’80s and ’90s about how evidence can be given, including the use of televisual transmission, so that victims are able to give evidence about events that in many cases took place many years before.
Keith Vaz
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. He is not just a distinguished former barrister, but a distinguished author. He is right—things have changed. We should not stand by and allow crimes to be committed, especially given that how evidence can be given has been transformed since he started as a lowly paid legal aid barrister in the north of England. Things have changed, and the hon. Gentleman is right. New technology provides us with the ability to look carefully at these offences.
So far, the Select Committee’s inquiry has received 53 pieces of written evidence. That is higher than average— by the time we complete our hearings, I expect we will have even more. We are to report in July. We want to give the Government plenty of time to consider our conclusions, so that we can see whether they are serious about adopting the recommendations that we have made.
Of course, we will want to look at the legislation. Does the current legislation need to be toughened up? There are two relevant Acts: the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 and the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985. We need to look at them together and see what further changes we need to make. I do not believe that there is a reason to toughen up the legislation; the issue is not about changing the law, but about how we implement the law. If I am wrong, I am sure that witnesses will tell us so as the inquiry progresses.
Hundreds of prosecutions have been successfully secured in France. Protection Maternelle et Infantile, a state-funded medical body, conducts check-ups on pregnant women and on children in the first six years of their lives. I am not sure that any equivalent body is doing that in our country. The process results in the highest rates of FGM detection and it is one of the most significant factors behind the high number of successful prosecutions.
However, we need to be clear that what is being done in France is controversial; it has not been met with universal support from individuals and community groups. We need to look at and build on the success of what has happened in countries such as France. I do not know whether the Minister has gone to France to meet his opposite number, but the Committee will want to do that as part of its inquiry.
I have just returned from Nairobi, where we have been looking at counter-terrorism as part of the Committee’s brief. We met a number of Kenyan officials who were pleased at the change in law in Kenya and other countries and wanted to share their experience with us. I was told on my way to this Chamber, by a number of people coming to watch these deliberations, that we should also concentrate on countries such as Sierra Leone, because there is a real problem there. As well as looking at our own country, we need to look abroad to see what is happening—in Africa and other parts of the world and in those European countries where there have been prosecutions.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. It seems to me that evidence could come from doctors and hospitals; such medical evidence should be sufficient to start a serious investigation to deal with the problem. That could happen now, although I am not sure whether it does. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will enlighten me.
Keith Vaz
I thank the hon. Gentleman. He is right. Common sense dictates that the first thing one would do is go to the doctors, because they would know better than anyone else. We can make suppositions, but at the end of the day, when people are being treated in hospital or undergoing other forms of assessment, the doctors are in the relevant position.
I would not want to say that the hon. Gentleman has identified one of the Committee’s recommendations, bearing in mind that we are only starting the inquiry tomorrow, but common sense dictates that the medical profession has a huge role to play in trying to help us solve the problem. However, we will not know how until we have the chance to hear from them.
Kerry McCarthy
I met a group of women health workers in Bristol on Friday. My right hon. Friend knows that Bristol has been at the forefront of the campaign against FGM. Some brilliant work has been done by the young women there. The health workers obviously come into contact a lot with women who have undergone FGM, but usually at the stage when they are giving birth and going through maternity services. That is far too late to identify who carried out the operation on them, given that that usually happens before the age of nine.
The health workers were convinced that the best solution would be to have examinations of girls in schools. I agree with my right hon. Friend that this is an incredibly sensitive matter, but I just wanted to place on the record that the health workers I spoke to thought that the solution would be for us to have some system of inspecting girls at risk.
Keith Vaz
That is extremely helpful. If my hon. Friend would like to put the group that she contacted in her constituency in touch with the Select Committee, we would very much like to hear from them. One feature of this inquiry is not just to hear from the men in suits, who always want to give evidence to Select Committee inquiries—although I hope that the Minister will come suitably suited and booted when he appears. We also want to hear from others, including all the stakeholders. Local groups know more about this subject than those of us who sit in Westminster. Please put us in touch with the groups, so that we can hear from a wide range of individuals and organisations about this subject.
Bob Stewart
I apologise for intervening again, but I recall, colleagues, that when primary schools take children in, there is a medical for boys and girls. If that was to be somehow tightened up, we might get better evidence about what is happening. Again, I may be wrong, but that is what I think. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman, who is a friend, will enlighten us again.
Keith Vaz
I was going to say that the hon. Gentleman looks younger than me. I cannot remember what happened at primary school, even though I am sure some newspaper will find out what I did there 52 years ago.
We will find out; this is precisely why we are having this debate. We will study every contribution from every Member, because these are the kinds of things that we need to find out.
Guy Opperman
I welcome the fact that the right hon. Gentleman is looking to take evidence from the French example, because surely that is the country we can best learn from; it has dealt best with this problem. Does he agree that we will need to be robust with the communities where the problem is taking place? As the French former Justice Minister, Rachida Darti, said,
“This mutilation has no foundation in any religion, philosophy, culture or sociology…It cannot be justified in any way”,
because, quite simply, it is a crime.
Keith Vaz
That is helpful. I am glad the hon. Gentleman quoted Ms Darti. I do not need to use that quote since he has cited it so eloquently.
Yes, we need to find out what is happening and we need to be robust, but we should also understand that this is an area of the criminal justice system; the hon. Gentleman described how it has improved. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) warned us about getting children to give evidence against their parents. These are important issues. They are not cultural issues, but about how we approach our system of justice.
As well as hearing from the Minister and others, we hope to hear from health care professionals, the police—we need an explanation about why there have been so many years without a prosecution—and the CPS, because these matters go to the CPS. We have had an enlightened DPP in the past few years in Keir Starmer, who made some useful statements about the issue, but unfortunately no one was prosecuted while he was DPP. The inquiry will hear from Alison Saunders, the new DPP.
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which gave written evidence to the Committee, set up a helpline last year to see how many calls were received and from whom.
To date there have been 152 calls, e-mails and other communications to the helpline: 31 were from professionals seeking general advice on female genital mutilation; 56 were inquiries about more detailed information or training, and 65 were referrals by professionals concerned about specific young people. That gives us a good breakdown of the number of people involved in the study. I thank the NSPCC not only for submitting written evidence but for sharing that important information with us. The statistics prove that we need not only prosecutions, but education and awareness, without which we will not be able to get to the bottom of this terrible crime, and we will miss opportunities to prevent such crimes and to take appropriate action.
I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) has joined us. In the House this afternoon he probed the Home Secretary on female genital mutilation and rightly praised the Government for their work so far, but he also urged more action. He has been one of the great campaigners on this issue, and I pay tribute to him.
Guy Opperman
I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way one last time. Does he accept that, although prevention is obviously the most important part of any campaign, the Crown Prosecution Service and the police must have a strong emphasis on prosecuting events that may have taken place 10, 20 or 30 years previously where there is evidence that allows such cases to be brought, provided that the victim is willing to come forward?
Keith Vaz
I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but I caution against taking a historical approach too far. I understand what he says. If someone has committed a crime, no matter how long ago, we have to follow the evidence and search for the truth, but the evidence is in front of us now. Female genital mutilation is happening now, so we have to prevent it from happening at this very moment. He is right that we need to go back to find those responsible. Debates, inquiries and discussions such as this, and the consequent media attention, will mean that many people come forward to talk about things that happened many years ago, and perhaps they will now feel stronger about giving evidence than they would have done when it happened to them.
The urgency is that, as we speak in Westminster Hall today, the statistics show that in some part of the country a young girl or woman is being subjected to FGM. It is happening as we speak. I do not want to say to how many people it will happen during this three-hour debate because I have already cautioned against being over-reliant on estimates, but it is happening. We need to act now.
I conclude by congratulating those who initiated the e-petition, without which we would simply not be holding this debate. It is true that we could have taken our place in line to apply to the Backbench Business Committee for a debate, but the e-petition has enabled us to come to Parliament with a body of opinion behind us in the country so that we could put that information before the Backbench Business Committee. I thank those who led and signed the petition to the Government, which amassed 106,281 signatures: Leyla Hussein, whom I have mentioned; the Daughters of Eve; and Efua Dorkenoo OBE from Equality Now. I also thank those who signed and organised the Change.org petition, particularly Fahma Mohamed—that petition obtained 229,925 signatures. Taken together, a third of a million people have signed petitions to ensure that female genital mutilation was brought before the House today.
Some things happened almost immediately, before this debate and before the Select Committee’s hearings, which begin tomorrow. I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State for Education, after meeting Fahma Mohamed and others, has agreed to write to all primary and secondary head teachers to remind them of their responsibilities. That is very important, but when the Select Committee produced a report on forced marriages because we were concerned about the number of young girls who were disappearing in the summer term to be married abroad and we asked the Secretary of State to write to remind head teachers to look out for sudden falls in the attendance rolls, he and his Ministers decided not to do so. The FGM reminder is an excellent opportunity to address that responsibility in relation to forced marriages.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
I am obliged to my right hon. Friend for giving way. I apologise for arriving late, and I congratulate those who secured the debate. The Secretary of State for Education is writing to schools, but should we not now seriously consider a mandatory obligation to report any suspicion, whether it is in schools, hospitals or any other field? People should be forced by law to report such suspicions because FGM is a serious criminal offence.
Keith Vaz
My hon. Friend speaks with great passion on this subject, and he is right that that is something we need to consider. I will not pre-empt the Committee’s conclusions—the inquiry has not even started—but that is something we will need to consider. If people are required to report their suspicions, we are more likely to discover crimes that have been committed.
I am nearing the end of my contribution, so I just say to hon. Members that I will not give way again because I know that others want to participate, but I thank everyone for what they have said.
I finish by acknowledging what the newspapers have done. Alexandra Topping of The Guardian has written many impressive pieces on what has been happening, and Martin Bentham and Anna Davis of the London Standard won Women on the Move awards for raising awareness. I am pleased that the Government have pledged £35 million of dedicated foreign aid to address FGM abroad, and I welcome the work of the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire as chair of the United Nations women all-party group and the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd). I also welcome the extremely helpful work of the Select Committee on International Development and the right hon. Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce).
There is still a huge amount to be done and a long way for us to go to stop this brutal crime. Although the wheels have started to turn in recent months, the best way to ensure that the Government act is for Parliament and the people to come together to ensure that the Government do not lose the momentum that has begun over the past few weeks and months. It is deeply worrying that when, for example, Leyla Hussein stopped shoppers in Northampton to ask them to sign a petition helping her to protect her culture, tradition and rights, many people did not sign. She asked people to sign the petition in good faith, but 19 people declined in a 30-minute period. It is important that we acknowledge that, although we know about the problem, there are many more who do not know about it. We must continue to raise awareness.
Since the debate began, two members of the Home Affairs Committee have joined us: my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North and the hon. Member for Cambridge. They have both been at the forefront of securing the Committee’s inquiry. I know that they will want to ensure that the Committee looks for all the reasons why there have been no prosecutions, so that we can get those prosecutions and so that women and young girls in our country and abroad can at last feel that justice is being done.
Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the organisers of the petition and the many thousands of people who were good enough to sign it. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the lady who had some difficulties when going up to people and asking for signatures in the street, but I do that regularly, so I know that people often do not sign if they do not immediately realise what is being called for. It is not lack of understanding or of compassion; it is just because someone is approaching them on the street. I am sure that those 19 people, as well as the many others who did not respond, would have done so had they begun to appreciate the enormity of the problem.
I will concentrate my contribution on the honour culture, which is from where these practices emanate. I commend to colleagues in the House and anyone listening to the debate the film, “Honor Diaries”, which was premiered in this House last Wednesday. Paula Kweskin, the writer and producer, addressed hon. Members and community and business leaders and spoke about the making of the film. The whole point of the film is that while we respect culture in this country—of course we do—it is no excuse for abuse. I have sent a link to the film to every Member of Parliament and every Member in the other place.
Having watched the film, which is harrowing in places, the basic premise is that in some cultures, a woman is not a person in her own regard. She is part of her family, led by its male members—her husband or her father—and male honour depends on the behaviour of the woman. That is why, in some cultures and some areas, she is so very constrained. In the film, we hear harrowing stories about a girl who dared to look at some boys as she walked past. Any young girl would glance at a boy, but that poor girl had acid thrown over her, just because she did that. The film spoke to a number of men, who were completely open about the fact that their honour is the most important thing; more important than the life and happiness of their child. The film goes through issues including arranged marriage and honour killings, mutilations and whipping as punishments for any perceived infringement of the family honour.
Bob Stewart
Perhaps the hon. Lady will go on to explain this, but what is the role of the mother in this arrangement? The mother must have a powerful position within the family and, regardless of what we think, she is pivotal to sorting this issue out.
Lorely Burt
One would think so, but that is often not the case. Indeed, I was going to explain that FGM in particular is usually perpetrated by the female extended family. Shocking though that is, the film shows a woman who, because it is part of the culture, does these barbaric acts on children. She says, “The children will not grow up strong. No one will want to marry this girl if she does not have this done.” It is doubly shocking that the mother could be the willing participant in something as awful as that.
This issue is about very basic rights. We have done work in Afghanistan, and we can see the number of girls there who can now go to school. Malala Yousafzai has so strongly raised the right of young girls to go to school, and that has gone all over the world.
Ms Abbott
It is absolutely correct to say that more often than not it is mothers and grandmothers who insist on FGM, but let us not forget that these women think they are doing their best for their children. We are talking about cultures that are very invested in FGM, and we need to be careful that we do not sound too judgmental about those women, who are often not very well educated. They genuinely think that FGM is best for their daughters.
Lorely Burt
I am grateful for that intervention, but the right hon. Lady gets to the crux of the matter. She says that we should not be too judgmental, but in this country that is exactly what we must be. We must be judgmental about the families who perpetrate the practice. Culture is no excuse for that kind of abuse.
Ms Abbott
I am the last person in the world to use culture as an excuse. The fact that we have had no prosecutions is a disgrace, and if I catch the Chair’s eye, I will speak on that issue. None the less, we have to remember that these women think they are genuinely doing the best for their children.
Lorely Burt
I take the hon. Lady’s point. Another issue is simply the autonomy of women. The film features an Egyptian lady who is not permitted to drive or to go out unless she is accompanied by a male guardian. Although I catch the hon. Lady’s drift, there should be no room for tolerance of FGM in this country. Even if it is a cultural thing, it cannot be acceptable.
I will briefly address the erudite comments of the right hon. Member for Leicester East on what we need to do in this country. The Government have already done some encouraging things, such as the day of zero tolerance that we had in February and the fact that it is now compulsory in hospitals to report FGM if its perpetration on a patient is detected.
What worries me a lot—it has been discussed a lot—is the spiriting away of children to other countries to have FGM perpetrated on them or to have arranged marriages, with children as young as 10 being married off. The Home Office has managed to obtain £100,000 from the European Commission for community engagement work on FGM, and British charities can bid for up to £10,000 to carry out that work. The Government have appointed a consortium of leading anti-FGM campaigners to deliver a global campaign to end the practice.
We must take affirmative action, and I look forward to the outcome of the inquiry that the Home Affairs Committee is about to undertake. There is so much more that we must do. We in this country are taking the lead, which is entirely appropriate not only because it is the right thing to do, but also because a third of a million people took the trouble to sign the petition for today’s debate. Imagine what else we can do with that kind of groundswell of support behind us.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I want first to congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) and the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) on securing the debate and to welcome the comments made by the Secretary of State for International Development over the weekend. Both sides of the House will unite on female genital mutilation to ensure that we prosecute those responsible for inflicting such a brutal practice on girls and women, and that we eliminate it once and for all.
Shockingly, an NSPCC survey of teachers reported that one in six are unaware that female genital mutilation is a crime, and that 68% of teachers are unaware of any Government guidance on what to do if they believe that a girl whom they teach is at risk. It is clear from what we have heard over the past weeks and months that we need to increase awareness of the practice among all professionals, such as GPs, midwives, teachers and health care and social workers. To do so, however, we must be more open as a society about discussing women’s bodies and be more comfortable with the language. Open and honest dialogue with boys, girls, men and women about women’s bodies will help to raise awareness and to break down the barriers that cause ignorance and embarrassment. We need to use words such as vagina and clitoris, because the more that we say them, the more comfortable we will become with initiating and engaging in such discussions.
Some hon. Members present will recall that I spoke in the Chamber during the Adjournment debate before Christmas about a procedure called a hysteroscopy, which looks inside a woman’s uterus and is often used to investigate symptoms such as pelvic pain, abnormal bleeding and infertility. I must admit that I found it difficult to use words such vagina, uterus and cervix in the Chamber.
Lyn Brown
Thank you.
If I find it hard to use such language, goodness knows how difficult it must be for a young girl or woman if she needs to talk to someone.
According to my local borough of Newham’s children safeguarding data, there were six recorded cases of female genital mutilation in 2013, and only five cases were reported to the police. In 2007, however, the Foundation for Women’s Health and Development, in collaboration with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, estimated that the number of maternities to women who had been genitally mutilated in Newham from 2001 to 2004 was between 6.7% and 7.2% a year. Using that as a calculation—rough and open to criticism though it might be—we can estimate that there were between 436 and 467 births in Newham to women who have been mutilated. Evidence shows that the children of women who have been mutilated are at greater risk of mutilation. It is therefore clear that there could be a large disparity between what is reported and what is actually happening in the community. The probable discrepancy in data highlights the need to work with at-risk communities—I hate to use that phrase—to ensure a greater understanding among the professionals charged with supporting victims of genital mutilation.
In response, Newham council has commissioned a female genital mutilation prevention service, which, to my knowledge, is the first of its kind in the country. The service is one of many that sit within the one-stop shop that supports victims of violence against women and girls and was commissioned to intervene when health professionals first become aware that an expectant mother has been genitally mutilated, which normally occurs during routine pregnancy examinations.
Bob Stewart
I thank the hon. Lady for her speech. I was there when she spoke in the Chamber and thought that she did tremendously well. Is the unit to which the hon. Lady refers able to visit schools in her constituency to educate both teachers and children to try to stop this abhorrent crime?
Lyn Brown
The unit is in its infancy and is currently developing how it will work within the community. I will go on to discuss what the unit expects to do in the next bit of my speech.
When a maternity professional becomes aware of a mother who has been the victim of genital mutilation, they are required to make a referral to safeguarding officials for child protection reasons and to invite the woman to access the genital mutilation prevention service. The service is geared up to support the victims of female genital mutilation to empower them to understand the negative consequences of mutilation and to enable them to become an advocate against the female genital mutilation of their own daughters. The service will provide advocacy for victims, involving extended family and spouses where appropriate, and thereby support women in their own environment to take a stand against the practice.
In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question, Newham council is training community-based female genital mutilation champions and is supporting victims to report domestic sexual violence to the police. So it is working with women in the community to work with women in the community in order to raise awareness of the act’s illegality.
Keith Vaz
I thank my hon. Friend for her eloquent speech. I am pleased to hear about what Newham council is doing, which is no doubt a result of her prompting and campaigning. Will the people involved in the unit also be members of the community? Units that are set up sometimes do not reflect the clients and diasporas involved. Is she confident that the unit will reach the roots of the community?
Lyn Brown
I am supportive of the action that Newham is taking to try to address the issues that may exist in the community, but I will not take the credit. Councillor Robinson and Councillor Paul have been active in action tackling violence against women and girls in our community, and it is their work that effectively led to the unit’s creation.
I am told that the unit will be highly sensitive. It is being commissioned in the grass roots of the communities themselves and will not be a council office. The service will seek to educate local health visitors, GPs, educational professionals, children’s services and police professionals and to support them in making relevant referrals. The council is also intent on gathering evidence on trends and issues concerning female genital mutilation in the borough, and I hope that that will help to inform the work not only of Newham council but other councils and communities that are affected. I am encouraged that the CPS thinks a prosecution for female genital mutilation is closer, because that would raise the issue higher in the mind of the community. Unless we start to prosecute those responsible, to raise awareness and reduce stigma, I am not sure we will ever begin to eliminate the awful practice in question. That is why the debate is so important, and why I am delighted to speak in it.
I urge all Members of the House, and indeed communities across the country, to continue to highlight the issue and campaign for appropriate resources to tackle a brutal practice.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
I shall speak briefly, because others should have the opportunity to speak. I confess I did not intend to speak until I saw the debate listed, but I felt impelled to come to support the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who introduced the debate, and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham), who chairs the all-party United Nations women group. I congratulate the various newspapers who highlighted and publicised the issue. The point of a free press is to give exposure to such things and articulate the case. I pay tribute to The Guardian, the Evening Standard and various local papers, such as those in Bristol that gave particular support to the campaign, and to the individuals who signed the petition and brought the issue to wider recognition in the House and generally.
Normally I sit in awe of the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, so it is interesting that I should make any recommendations to the Committee, but I suggest that it might give attention to six matters. The first three are international prevention, local prevention and cultural change. The fourth is the identification and support of flag-bearers for potential prosecutions. The fifth is examining and making conclusions on the extent to which the two Acts that currently apply to the crime in question should be changed; and the sixth is addressing and identifying the legal processes by which the offence would be brought forward.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
Perhaps I should not add to the hon. Gentleman’s list of recommendations for the Select Committee, since I am on it, but there is one that might unfortunately be beyond our scope, and that is sex education in schools. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a fundamental problem when sex and relationships education in schools is not compulsory? Parents can withdraw their children from it, so many children may not get information that would help them to understand the issues and what they should do—and, indeed, to use the type of language whose importance has been discussed in the debate.
Guy Opperman
Far be it from me to disagree with a member of the Committee, particularly before it has begun to sit, but my answer is yes and no. Yes, there is a need for greater awareness of sex education as part of the educational programme that is under way, but I do not think that that of itself will provide a panacea or solution. It is one aspect of the problem.
Lorely Burt
Perhaps I may elaborate on what my hon. Friend said. It is not just sex education but sex and relationships education that should be compulsory in every school in the country. Young people do not know how to behave, and that is a great sadness. Things are difficult enough for them when they get to puberty and hormones start rushing. You can give them sex education until you are blue in the face, but without guidance or explanation about how relationships work, that will not help those young people to become responsible, happy adults.
Guy Opperman
I endorse the broad thrust of what the hon. Lady says, but that is part of a package of measures. Let us not be blind to what we all acknowledge: there is no one single thing that will change the existing climate, the cultural approach, or the likelihood of a criminal prosecution. There are several different matters, and that is why I welcome the fact that the Home Affairs Committee will consider the matter and make recommendations, just as I welcome today’s debate.
The first issue I wanted to talk about is international prevention. I welcome the fact that the Government, following on the good work of previous Governments, are making international aid money available; the Secretary of State for International Development is committing several million pounds to education around the world, continuing processes established by her predecessors. Surely that must be the start, and there are lessons to learn from countries such as France, which has grasped the issue of the horrendous crime in question. Its approach is robust and no-nonsense, and all credit is due to it.
Guy Opperman
The hon. Lady makes a fair point and I can only quote the words of Isabelle Gillette-Faye about Great Britain:
“You have a tradition of multiculturalism, but you cannot accept everything in the name of tolerance, and certainly not the abuse of girls through mutilation and forced marriage…You have to tell parents cutting is not acceptable and if they don’t listen you threaten them with prosecution and jail.”
She finishes with two simple words:
“It works.”
We must be blunt. There is no point beating about the bush. The problem comes from certain countries, and it will be necessary to engage with those communities. There is no question that in such countries as Burkina Faso and Mali the cultural tradition in question goes on—and, as the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) said, in some respects it is a normal cultural tradition in those places. That needs to be addressed, and the focus of the international aid money should be on the countries where it is prevalent.
We all welcome and support the campaigner Fahma Mohamed. We also welcome and support what The Guardian has done, and the changes brought about through the decision of the Secretary of State for Education to write to all the schools in the country, because of the campaign. It can only be a good thing for local prevention that several different Departments are engaged in the issue, as evidenced by the recent announcement from the Department for Education, the money allocated by the Home Office, and the actions of the Department of Health. It is right and proper to record the campaigning work done by the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison). She was raising the issue for some time before her promotion, and making it a priority was part of her brief at the Department of Health.
Clearly there is a need for extreme sensitivity about the religion and culture of the communities affected. However, there is also a need for a robust approach. It is unacceptable that after successive Governments have abhorred the practice, it is almost impossible to get a witness to give evidence against their parents or relatives. That is the harsh reality. My first question to the right hon. Member for Leicester East was about the comparison with the situation in the late 1980s and the 1990s, when there were child abuse and sex abuse allegations, and prosecutors encouraged children to give evidence against their relatives of that abhorrent crime. The issue we are debating is child abuse and sexual abuse just as much as that was. There is no difference.
Bob Stewart
I have been thinking about this carefully. If a successful prosecution were to go ahead, a mother and a father may well be indicted in court. Therefore, what would happen to the children if the two people who normally look after them were jailed?
Guy Opperman
I can assist my hon. Friend. Procedures are in place for prosecutions and, within the confines of the criminal justice and social services systems, whether the child is taken into care or fostered or supported, there are definitely support mechanisms in place. It is not easy. No one should pretend that someone giving evidence against their family members is easy in any way whatsoever. I will come to the degree of support that I want to see, but the individual campaigners must also look hard at their individual communities and ask themselves: where is the flag-bearer? Where is the woman who is prepared to stand up and say, “This has happened to me,” and to suffer what is—let us be blunt—a very embarrassing process? I have prosecuted well over 100 trials and giving evidence of sexual allegations against a lady or a man is exceptionally embarrassing at all times.
Lorely Burt
I suggest to my hon. Friend that we are talking about more than embarrassment. By doing that, someone would be dishonouring their own family and the repercussions of that can be much more severe than a little embarrassment.
Guy Opperman
I accept that at present the prevailing cultural interpretation is such a dishonouring. But when one compares the situation here with that in France, one sees that, slowly but surely, it has become the case that failing to come forward to make such a case is dishonouring the culture and community of which they are so proud to be a part. In the 21st century, it cannot be an appropriate part of that culture and community to condone, allow and positively encourage the continuation of this abhorrent act. In the French communities, we see a change in perception, with support for those individuals who give evidence from the very same people who perhaps five or 10 or 15 or 20 years ago would have named and shamed and made life very difficult for those individuals. That is an example of a country that has moved further forward and the impact of that change.
I come back to the point that this is an offence. Of course, we want to stop any such offending taking place now. Huge efforts will be made by successive Governments and various aspects of Government to stop this happening now, but the best possible preventive measure would be a successful prosecution for something that has taken place in the past. Again, I make the very strong point to the individual communities—they all know who they are—where such offending is taking place. They all have to consider this: given that well over 100,000 people in this country have suffered this fate, if the evidence is there and they have not come forward thus far, they are letting their community down if they do not come forward.
I want to discuss law change. I know and worked with the previous Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, who was an outstanding DPP. I do not know the present DPP—partly because I am so old and I was not practising when she was—[Interruption.] I am ageing fast. In her submissions earlier this year, she makes the fair point that it is possible that the law may need to be changed. As I understand the legal framework, if I were a prosecutor and the individual who had committed the offence was not a UK resident, it would be exceptionally difficult to pursue that prosecution. The Select Committee needs to look at that and it would be well advised to address that. However, while many are being taken away in order for cutting to take place, there are those who are definitely performing that act in this country, and they will have records and payment systems, so there is plentiful evidence that these things took place. Examinations should be done. Where a victim has suffered that crime in this country, where a prosecution is so much easier to pursue, and continues to live in this country, that is the best potential avenue for successful prosecutions, and that should be the direction of travel for the Crown Prosecution Service.
I finish on the issue of legal processes. When I started prosecuting in 1990, there was no such thing as a victim’s statement. The victim gave their witness statement and then, even in sexual cases, they gave evidence live. There were no screens and no TV monitors, and judges and counsel were not trained. We have advanced light years in the past 20 or so years: successive Governments have introduced everything from police officers who are trained to take statements, to processes that make it much easier for children to give evidence, and training for individual judges. I could go on. My point is this: just as we had to train judges, counsel and court staff in how to handle sexual offences cases—particularly child-based sexual offences, such as the abuse of five to eight-year-olds, who then have to give evidence in some shape or form—as the Home Affairs Committee reviews this matter and as the processes are gone through, we must make very sure that the appropriate mechanisms are in place, and that the appropriate judges and counsel are in place, to address this type of prosecution and take that forward.
Such a prosecution will not be easy to bring. It needs to be done with great sensitivity and profound awareness of all the cultural problems. I had not intended to speak, Mr Robertson, but I thank you for your indulgence.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
I congratulate the organisers of the petition. I will deal with the allegation that, in some sense, I was preaching tolerance of FGM. I had a different point. In some ways, perhaps we have been too tolerant in the past. We need prosecutions, partly because of the exemplary nature of the process, and we need the duty to report.
I believe that—this is quite controversial—we need routine medical examinations and we certainly need to raise consciousness among health and education professionals. We also need to support the victims of FGM with more units such as those in Newham. I repeat, however, that unless we understand why people who consider themselves conscientious family members would collude with this process, we cannot eradicate it. I would like this country to be an FGM-free zone: a place of safety for young children. However, along with all that I have set out, we also need to have some understanding of how embedded it is in culture.
People are talking about FGM as if it is a brand-new issue. It is not; it has been spoken about since the ’60s. Those of us of a literary turn of mind will remember the American novelist Alice Walker’s 1992 novel, “Possessing the Secret of Joy”, which is about FGM. We also remember that whenever FGM has been raised, whether by women on the continent, writers overseas or health professionals, it has been met with a ferocious defence from those countries and communities. Jomo Kenyatta, who was otherwise a much respected liberator and leader in Kenya—he was the first Prime Minister—was a great defender of FGM.
Let me remind the House about the incidence of FGM in particular countries. The countries with the highest level of FGM according to UNICEF are as follows. In Somalia, 98% of women are affected; in Guinea, it is 96% of women; in Djibouti, it is 93%; in Egypt, it is 91%; in Eritrea, it is 89%; in Mali, it is 89%; in Sierra Leone, it is 88%; and in Sudan, it is 88%.
I put it to the House that, despite the fact that we have known for perhaps 50 years of the medical harms and the problems associated with FGM, incidence of FGM in those countries remains very high. That is a clue that, on their own, knowledge, education and consciousness raising will not bear down on the practice. As I have said, communities are invested in the process. Very often mothers and grandmothers collude to have the FGM done. In some societies, such as Sierra Leone, the people who do the cutting are women. They belong to some secret cult, and despite the fact that, I believe, FGM is illegal in Sierra Leone, those women will march to defend their right to cut children. Unless we understand that kind of thing, we will just be talking. It is a difficult and complex subject, which is not new. People have been fighting against it for half a century. It is not simply a function of ignorance, as I say. In those countries, it is against the law, and there are education programmes, yet still relatively sophisticated people have FGM performed on their female children.
For 29 years, Britain has specifically banned the practice of FGM. At this point, it might be helpful to put on the record what FGM is. FGM can range from the removal of the clitoris to the sewing up of the vagina, leaving only a small aperture for urination. It is not necessary to be a doctor or medical expert to understand the medical problems that can arise for someone who has had their vagina sewn up—perhaps in adolescence—opened up again so their husband can consummate the marriage, sewn back up and then opened up again to have a baby. It is the most extraordinarily cruel procedure. The medical problems are obvious, and have been so for decades.
I was reading about the subject at the weekend in preparation for this debate. Quite often, FGM is done with a knife or razor blade. I have read narratives from young women who have been held down by family members, and their blood has spurted from between their legs on to the face of the cutter. Those women bear those memories for a lifetime. I hope no one is accusing me of preaching tolerance of a brutal and ultimately profoundly sexist practice. What is FGM about? It is partly about controlling women—controlling their sexuality and controlling them in their society.
Even though a new law was passed in 2003 that made it illegal for British-based parents to send girls abroad to be cut, no prosecutions have resulted. That is shameful. I would not necessarily use France as an example of best community relations, but on this question the French have performed rather better than we have in the UK. In the past 34 years there have been 29 trials, in which 100 people—both parents and cutters—have been convicted. The most recent was in Nevers in central France 18 months ago, in which a father and mother of a small girl were jailed for two years and 18 months respectively. Now, one would not want to put children’s mothers and fathers in prison, but that can happen in the context of other dreadful crimes. I believe that unless people know that there is some possibility of prosecution, efforts to bear down on FGM will just be talk. People have to know that when it comes to it, either the cutter or the family members will bear the full sanction of the law.
Some people have said to me, “If you simply prosecute people, that on its own is not going to do it.” Of course it will not do it on its own, but in this society we use the law to signal our abhorrence of certain practices. The law should be used at the very least to signal our abhorrence of FGM and to protect not hundreds but thousands of young girls in this city who might be in danger of FGM even as we speak.
Another thing that happens in France is systematic examination of girls for signs of FGM during health checks. We have to look at that. If the possibility for prosecution rests on asking young girls who are already in a patriarchal family structure to inform on their parents, it seems to me that our levels of prosecution are going to remain low to zero.
Of course it is important to change attitudes—that is what the campaign in The Guardian and some of the local campaigns are doing—and to support victims and to try to get the information out there. But as I have said, if we look at the countries where FGM is an issue, they have had that information. They have made it illegal and they have raised consciousness and had poster campaigns, yet levels of FGM remain very high.
In my short-lived career as a public health spokesperson, one of the things I learned was that in public health matters, although we of course want to change people’s personal understanding and practices, the most effective measures are those taken upstream. Nothing has done more to bring down levels of smoking in this country than banning smoking in pubs and clubs. That brought down levels not only of smoking but of adult and childhood asthma. I believe that if we deem FGM to be a public health issue, we need upstream measures on it, such as prosecutions and looking at the question of medical examinations. Of course we want to change hearts and minds but if people are contemplating having FGM done to their daughter or are thinking that they can send their daughter home in the school holidays to have it done, they need to know that they are courting prosecution.
We need always to be careful about how we talk about communities and cultures. It does no good to try to imply that the mothers of the young girls affected are in some sense monsters. It is important to understand the cultural context, and to understand that it is because of that cultural context that mere exhortation of people to stop doing FGM to their female children has failed in country after country. I am clear: it is a disgrace and a shame that in 2014 we cannot protect those young girls in London and other big cities. We do not need simply consciousness raising and educational information. It is not even a question of the units that we are now getting, thankfully, in places such as Newham. We have to face up to the need for prosecution and for routine medical examination.
FGM is a practice to which some of the British authorities have turned a blind eye for too long. It is long overdue that we, as a political class, take serious action on FGM. I am therefore grateful to the people who organised the petition and made the debate possible.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) and the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) on securing the debate. As my right hon. Friend reminded us, it has been a long time since we debated FGM in this House—far too long. The debate today has shown both the strength of feeling among Members of all parties and the vast reserves of knowledge among those who have spoken.
I also want to congratulate the campaigners who have done so much to raise the profile of this issue, including Daughters of Eve and Equality Now, but particularly Leyla Hussein and Fahma Mohamed, who represent the best of our young women. They have dared to confront and to speak out on an issue that many of us find it difficult to grapple with and would often prefer to ignore, and their courage ought to be commended. They are right to remind us of the terrible failure for which Governments of all colours have been responsible for 28 years. We must face up to that and accept the responsibility. We have failed British girls who are subject to this horrific abuse, and because of that failure, a child somewhere will be crying as they are cut, and a woman somewhere will be forced to endure almost unbearable pain in childbirth or sexual intercourse, or will suffer from depression or post-traumatic stress because of what has been done to her.
The report from the royal colleges, “Tackling FGM in the UK”, estimates—it is an estimate, as every hon. Member who has spoken today has said—that about 66,000 women in England and Wales have undergone this mutilation and are now living with the resulting pain and complications, and that about 24,000 girls under 15 are at risk. Yet no one has been brought to justice for what is an appalling crime. Despite the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985 and its successor, the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003, no one has faced a court. If people were being mutilated by someone wielding a knife in the street, there would be an outcry demanding justice for the victim. Yet the victims of FGM are mutilated in private. They are subjected to the most horrific form of child abuse and violence against women, which is so bad that it is classified by the UN as torture. Yet their perpetrators are not brought to justice.
Ms Abbott
Does my hon. Friend agree that a difficulty with these sorts of statutory sexual crimes is that they sometimes involve one person’s word against another’s, or that they happened a long time ago? With FGM, the physical consequences are very clear and last a lifetime, which makes the failure to prosecute even worse.
Helen Jones
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and I will come to how we might gather evidence. She is right. It is simply incredible that no one has yet been prosecuted. The law is fairly clear, although it is worth considering proposals from various places to look at offences preparatory to the offence of FGM and at how the law could apply when the cutter is a foreign national who then leaves the country. I hope the Minister will say whether the Government are prepared to consider that. If they are prepared to introduce proposals, we will facilitate putting them on to the statute book.
For all sorts of reasons, the existing law is not being implemented and Parliament must make it clear that it must be implemented and the necessary steps must be taken to do so. As several hon. Members have acknowledged, including my hon. Friends the Members for West Ham (Lyn Brown) and for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), this is an extraordinarily difficult area. Many girls are too young when they are cut to be able to speak about what has happened to them. When they are older, many do not wish to bring shame or trouble on their families. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington is right to say that families may believe that if they do not carry out this mutilation, they could be excluded by their community, or their daughters may find it difficult to make a decent marriage and so on.
The Government must work with those communities to improve understanding, to change people’s minds and to encourage them to come together to eradicate FGM. One family alone cannot stand against it, but a community with the right leadership can act. I recognise that, but saying that something is thought to be right or a cultural norm does not make it right. Alongside the effort to try to change attitudes, there must be an effort to enforce the law. That effort must begin by training professionals to recognise girls at risk of FGM to ensure that they are protected, and to report it when they encounter it.
I hope the Government will accept unreservedly the recommendations of the report by the royal colleges. FGM must be treated as child abuse with no ifs, no buts and no maybes, and front-line professionals, whether in health, teaching or social work, must be empowered to protect girls at risk and be assessed on the outcomes. That requires early identification of those who may be subject to FGM, even from babyhood, and especially those who are born to mothers who have themselves undergone FGM. Their children are at high risk, and should be referred for a proper safeguarding plan to be put in place for them.
Teachers are also in the front line and are often the first people a child looks to for protection. Yet a YouGov poll for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham mentioned, showed that 83% of the teachers surveyed said they had not been given any training about FGM. I know that the Secretary of State for Education has finally written to schools drawing attention to the practice following the inspiring campaign led by Fahma Mohamed and other young women in Bristol, but it is not enough by itself simply to write to schools. One in six teachers said in that poll that they did not know that FGM was even illegal in this country, so there is clearly much more to do in training.
Ms Abbott
Does my hon. Friend agree that, sadly, teachers may have dozens of letters on their desks every week? Instead of just writing a letter, the Secretary of State should look at the whole issue of mandatory sex and relationship education in schools and, as my hon. Friend said, training. Just sending a letter to join the pile of other papers on a teacher’s desk is not enough.
[Mr Dai Havard in the Chair]
Helen Jones
My hon. Friend is right. I have long been an advocate of compulsory sex and relationship education in schools. It is essential for our children to grow up confident in themselves and able to form healthy relationships. She is also right about training. As the documentary programme, “The Cruel Cut”, showed, if a young child turns to a teacher for help and does not get that help, it is clear that much more must be done.
Teachers have many demands on their time, but all schools need to have safeguarding plans in place and those safeguarding plans must include dealing with female genital mutilation. Teachers must be able to recognise the signs that a child is at risk or that they have already been cut, and know what to do when that happens.
Kerry McCarthy
I was at St Brendan’s sixth form college in my constituency on Friday and I met a group of young women to talk about a range of issues. They were very strong in their support for the need for compulsory sex and relationship education. I had the opportunity to sit in at the beginning of a class where four young women from Integrate Bristol, which is at the forefront of campaigning against FGM, were explaining to a roomful of students what FGM was all about by showing them a film and encouraging them to discuss the issue in workshops. Those students were 17 and 18-year-olds, and I thought that was a valuable initiative. I was impressed by how serious they were. Hon. Members can imagine that, particularly if there are young lads in a class, they might not take that sort of thing seriously, but they all seemed to take on board the serious message that was being conveyed.
Helen Jones
My hon. Friend is right. Many young people take the issue seriously. Peer-provided information is often much better for young people than some old sod like me going in to lecture to them—[Interruption.]
Keith Vaz
I agree with everything my hon. Friend has said so far. She has heard about the initiative by the London borough of Newham, which my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) explained. If it is successful, and obviously we will wait to the see the outcome of the project, does my hon. Friend think that it perhaps should be rolled out in other parts of the country where FGM is a real problem?
Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)
Ms Jones, perhaps we should record your remark as “old soul”.
Helen Jones
I am very grateful, Mr Havard. What my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East said about the project in Newham was very interesting and, if my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham permits me, I hope to be able to visit it at some point. We need to learn from such initiatives about what works and what can be done on the ground.
As well as identifying young people through the education system, such as those whose mother or elder sister has undergone FGM, and making sure that robust safeguarding plans are in place, in my view, any girl or woman who presents to the health service having undergone female genital mutilation should be treated as the victim of a crime, because that is what they are. Appropriate safeguarding measures should be put in place. They should be referred to the police and to the support services, so that a proper plan of care and support can be implemented and medical evidence can be collected. We are currently not getting that approach, despite the efforts that have been made recently, because of a lack of training for front-line professionals, a lack of a joined-up approach and what I can best describe as a peculiarly British fear of offending people’s cultural sensibilities. In my view, that is the wrong mindset. Although we need to work with communities to change attitudes, our first duty—we should be clear about this—is to protect the child. That is absolutely our first duty and there should be no wavering from that.
Helen Jones
That may well be true and I shall come on to how we deal with that in a moment. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell me in his reply what the Home Office, which has lead responsibility for the issue, will do to ensure that other Departments play their part and that we have a proper system in place. In a parliamentary answer to me on 24 February, the Minister said that he had written to the Secretary of State for Education on the issue. Perhaps he can tell us what the response to that was and what is happening in schools to ensure that proper training and proper safeguarding measures are in place.
As has been said in the debate, in some countries—France is an example—there is systematic screening for female genital mutilation as part of normal health checks. In this country, that is often regarded as intrusive. It would, of course, involve screening a large amount of people who are not at risk as well. However, I suggest to the Minister that it might be worth establishing a task group, including people from the royal colleges, the NSPCC and other experts in the field, to look at how medical evidence can be sought and how the problems in this area can be dealt with sensitively and appropriately, so that we can avoid, if necessary, mass screenings of people who do not need to be screened, but also find medical evidence.
The report from the royal colleges stated that where there is a suspicion that a girl has undergone female genital mutilation, assessments and medicals are helpful and examinations need not be intrusive, but they are vital in providing evidence that leads to prosecution. That is very important, because we have heard several times in the debate about the difficulty of getting someone to give evidence against their own family. I absolutely understand that, particularly in certain cultures. It would be hard for me to give evidence against someone in my family, but when there is a system that links the family’s honour to the behaviour of others, it is extraordinarily difficult. However, there are ways through that if we accumulate medical evidence as well, which is what we should be doing.
To enforce the law requires two things. Yes, it requires education and publicity, so that people are clear about what constitutes an offence, but it also requires the deterrent effect of prosecutions, of people knowing clearly that if they flout the law, they will be brought before a court, and that if they are found guilty, they will pay the price. That is what we have failed to do. We must accept that we have got that wrong and look at ways to move forward.
In 2012, the then Director of Public Prosecutions chaired a round table to discuss why so few cases were being referred to the Crown Prosecution Service for charge and prosecution, and in September last year, the then DPP chaired a second round table to discuss progress on the FGM action plan. Following that meeting, he said that he believed that a prosecution under the 2003 Act was close. We were told that the CPS was reviewing decisions on prosecutions in four cases and considering whether to prosecute a more recent case, yet we still have not got anyone to court.
I hope that the Minister will tell us whether progress has been made on bringing charges in any case, and if not, what the evidential problems are. If the problem is, as I said, the unwillingness of victims or other members of the family to testify, we need to look at what use can be made of medical evidence and of statements from medical professionals, teachers and so on, who have all been in contact with the person who has been cut. If that by itself does not demonstrate the need for a much more joined-up, robust system of child protection, referral and recording of evidence right from the start, I do not know what does.
We simply cannot go on failing British girls like this—for these are British girls, who deserve exactly the same care and protection as any other British girl. We know this is happening. Newspapers report frequently that there is widespread knowledge of where it is happening, of where this torture is being carried out—and it is torture. I put it to hon. Members that, in all honesty, we have to ask ourselves, “If this was happening to white British girls, would we allow it to go on?” I think we know the answer to that. There would be a public outcry, and our black or brown British girls deserve no less protection and no less care. They are our responsibility. They are all our children.
We have to stop pretending that this is not happening. We have to stop turning our faces away from this appalling practice. We do not want to see it because it is so awful, but we have to see it in order to stop it. It is torture. It is child abuse. It has been illegal for over 25 years and it is still carried out with impunity. Let us call a halt now. Let us put in place the protection our girls deserve and ensure that in future, they can live their lives without undergoing this torture, and without putting up with the continuing pain that results. I say to the House: surely we owe them no less than that.
The Minister for Crime Prevention (Norman Baker)
I begin by welcoming the fact that this debate is taking place. As the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), pointed out, it is the first such debate since 2003, which is not a very good record for the House; it is a long, long time since the last debate.
There has been interest in the issue of FGM for almost 30 years, since the first law was passed in 1985, if not before that. I agree that we need to make more progress as a nation than we have to date, and I welcome the fact that there is renewed interest. We are making progress now as a nation in a way that we were not even a year or two ago, but there is much more to do. This debate is part of that.
I pay particular tribute to Leyla Hussein, who started the petition that has been the stimulus for tonight’s debate. It is as a result of her campaign and petition that we are here discussing in depth how we can tackle what we all agree, across all three parties, is an horrific procedure. I agree that it is child abuse. The Government has been very plain that that is the case and has regularly made that point very clear. Leyla is an extraordinary woman, whom I have met on a couple of occasions. She has been very brave in speaking out in the way she has, and we all owe her a debt for doing so.
I also welcome the fact that the Home Affairs Committee is conducting an inquiry into this matter. That is wholly welcome. I, for one, will be very pleased to give evidence to it. I look forward to the conclusions of its work and undertake to give proper and thorough consideration to any recommendations that come forward. It is wholly welcome that that debate and inquiry are taking place.
To answer one other point that the Committee Chairman made, I should say that I do sometimes read from a script, but one that I have altered after being given it by my officials. I just want to make that plain.
Kerry McCarthy
I am not quite sure what the protocol is for Ministers from other Departments giving evidence to a particular Select Committee. I know that the Home Affairs Committee was set up to scrutinise the work of this Minister’s Department, but does he agree with me that, given that this is such a cross-cutting issue—cutting across public health, the Attorney-General’s Department and, particularly, the Department for Education—it would be good if all that could be brought together in the scope of one inquiry?
Norman Baker
I will touch on what other Departments are doing as part of my response to the debate today. In answer to the hon. Lady’s question, I am not sure what the protocol is either. However, if the Chairman and members of the Select Committee wanted to invite other Ministers, I would have no problem with that; if those Ministers wished to give evidence, they would. I am, for example, giving evidence to a Select Committee about crime figures, which is largely a Ministry of Justice issue.
Keith Vaz
To answer my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) through the Minister, yes, we will call Ministers from other Departments: Health, Education and the Attorney-General’s Department. We try to share Ministers around as much as we can, as that is best for our recommendations.
Norman Baker
There we are; there is an answer to that question. Although the Home Office is the lead Department on this issue—I am very pleased to be leading on it—because of its importance, other Departments have an input into it. The reality is that if Departments do not work more closely together, across departmental boundaries, we will not get the full result that we want. It is also the case, of course, that if the Government does not work properly with councils, the voluntary sector and communities in our own country and abroad, we will not get the result that we want. An important aspect is the need for a joined-up approach, both in Government and outside.
Of course, it is also important to work with the campaigners, who have done so much. I have mentioned Leyla Hussein. It is also thanks to Nimko Ali, Lisa Zimmermann, Efua Dorkenoo, Janet Fyle, Naana Otoo-Oyortey and others that FGM now has the prominence that it does.
I join colleagues in thanking the media, because they have been responsible and helpful on this issue. I am thinking particularly of the Evening Standard, which has been very resolute in how it has approached this matter; and latterly there has been The Guardian as well. They are running excellent campaigns and show the value of the free press in this country. It is partly as a consequence of that and, I hope, what the Government has been doing, that data released last week revealed that the number of tip-offs to the Metropolitan police about FGM has more than doubled in the past year. That is partly down to increased publicity, but is also due to the greater understanding that there now is of what this barbaric practice involves.
Norman Baker
I do not have a figure in my notes, but if officials have got it, I will give it to the hon. Lady before the end of the debate. Actually, I do have the figure: 69 reports involving either direct allegations about FGM or other information on this practice have been received by the Met since the start of April last year, so it is still a relatively small number, although it is moving in the right direction.
Since I have joined the Home Office, my concerns about FGM have intensified. Although I have always been aware of and opposed FGM, the more I have learned about the practice, the more concerned I have become and the more determined to do something about it. It is one of my top priorities as a Minister in the Department. I agree with the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), whose speech I very much welcomed. I think that the root of this is about male control of women—as a man, I find that rather shameful—so there are reasons for men, as well as women, to be involved in addressing this matter.
What has struck me about the practice is that it is one of the most horrible and unnecessary forms of violence against women in the world. It is an extreme manifestation of patriarchal control. As everyone knows, there are severe and long-term consequences for any girls or women who undergo it. There are not simply physical consequences, although there are plenty of those; there are also psychological consequences. That needs to be dealt with.
I also agree with the hon. Lady when she says that some parents—some mothers—will believe that they are doing the right thing. I accept that. It is a tragedy, of course, because it is totally wrong; it is totally the wrong thing to do for their children. Without getting too personal, I could not bear to think of my daughter undergoing this practice. It is an abhorrent act, and we all need to ensure that we are challenging it.
A culture change is necessary, as hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber have accepted this afternoon. That needs to be taken forward. As the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington said, that is not simple, but it is necessary and we have to work out how best to do so. Some of the campaigners are in a better position to convince public opinion than perhaps Ministers, shadow Ministers or anyone else is, although we have our role to play, I hope, not least when it comes to the law. I will come to the issue of prosecutions and so on later.
We have to challenge the assumptions—the lazy assumptions, perhaps—that do exist in some areas, in some communities. FGM does not make women pure or clean. It does not increase fertility. It does not assure faithfulness. It is child abuse and needs to be tackled head on. I am clear that Government action to stop FGM is vital, not just to comply with our international human rights obligations—although it does do that—but, more importantly, to protect and safeguard girls and women from this hopelessly outdated and archaic practice. It has no place in the 21st century or, indeed, in any century.
I have mentioned that the Home Office has the lead responsibility on this issue, but we are working with other Departments. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), asked what was happening in that regard. I am happy to tell her. I think she may know, but just for the record I point out that on 6 February I brought Ministers from other Departments, from across Government, together for the international day of zero tolerance to female genital mutilation, and the Ministers from all the Departments who were there signed—this is probably unique or certainly very rare in Government—a document that made this statement:
“There is no justification for FGM—it is child abuse and it is illegal.
This government is absolutely committed to preventing and ending this extremely harmful form of violence.
The government is clear that political or cultural sensitivities must not get in the way of uncovering and stopping this terrible form of abuse. The law in this country applies to absolutely everyone.”
In the document, we go on to make a number of statements that I am sure hon. Members would agree with. Let me say for the record that it was not signed simply by me on behalf of the Home Office—it was also signed by the Under-Secretary of State for Health; the hon. Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison), who is responsible for public health; the Solicitor-General; my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for International Development; the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), who is responsible for children and families; and the Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims.
Subsequently, the document was signed by a senior Minister at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and by a Minister in the Department for Communities and Local Government. It was also signed by the DPP. We are determined to work cross-departmentally on this matter and we take it very seriously.
Helen Jones
No one would disagree with what is enshrined in that agreement, but how will it operate on the ground? Will we now see a requirement on teachers to identify those who are at risk of FGM or have undergone it and to put in place a safeguarding plan? Will we see a requirement on health workers to treat anyone who has undergone FGM as a victim of a crime and report it accordingly?
Norman Baker
I will give, I hope, reasonably full answers to all those questions as I work through my response. We have plenty of time. This is a serious issue, and I will address those points as I come to them, including how we will deal with the matter within Government, which is also important. I am delighted that the Minister responsible for public health has joined us for this debate.
On Saturday, we published the updated “Violence against Women and Girls Action Plan”, which contains more than 100 actions that different Departments have agreed to carry out to tackle violence against women and girls. Every three months, the Home Secretary chairs an inter-ministerial group on violence against women and girls, which I attend as a relevant Minister, to monitor progress on the action plan. This year’s action plan has a strong focus on FGM and will be the vehicle for the Home Office to drive the work forward. I also chair separate, specific cross-Government meetings on FGM, in recognition of the need to work together.
Declarations and cross-departmental working can take us only so far, however. My colleague the Minister with responsibility for public health, who did so much to raise the profile of FGM in her role as chair of the all-party group on female genital mutilation, announced that all acute hospitals would report information about the prevalence of FGM among their patient population each month. The full report from that data return will be available from the autumn. That is an enormous step forward in understanding the extent of FGM in this country.
Linked to that, the Home Office is part-funding a prevalence study on FGM, which is designed to update the figures from the 2007 study. Even the new study based on 2011 census data will provide only an estimate of prevalence, but the data from the NHS will give us a real insight into the incidence and distribution of FGM. Those data will provide local areas with the information that they need to prioritise tackling FGM, and in time they will give us a benchmark against which to monitor the effectiveness of our actions and interventions.
Ms Abbott
Does the Minister accept that the prevalence data based on census data are particularly unreliable for establishing the prevalence of something among ethnic minority communities? Apart from the problem of getting people to respond to the census, there is the issue of people who are British, and who correctly describe themselves as such, but who come from the countries that I listed earlier as having a high prevalence of FGM.
Norman Baker
That is a fair point, which I am sure the NHS and my colleague the Minister with responsibility for public health will take on board. That is only one element of the work being done by the Department of Health to improve how the NHS responds to, follows up and supports the prevention of FGM.
The Department also liaises closely with other Departments and agencies, such as the royal colleges, voluntary organisations, arm’s-length bodies and others, to make sure that they get a comprehensive take on the matter across the NHS. NHS bodies have a duty to assist and provide information in support of child protection inquiries under section 47 of the Children Act 1989. The Government recognises that for the existing legislative framework to succeed, health professionals must report both actual and suspected cases of FGM.
A lot of the debate has focused on prosecution. We all feel deep frustration that 28 years on there has not been a successful prosecution. Nobody welcomes that fact, and we must try to understand why it is and what we can do to change it. There are many barriers to prosecution if we rely solely on a victim’s testimony for evidence, as hon. Members have said. At the time of mutilation, victims may be too young and vulnerable or too afraid to report offences, or they may be reluctant to implicate family members who might be prosecuted as a consequence. Those barriers to prosecution cannot easily be overcome, so it is important to find ways of building a case that do not necessarily rely on the testimony of child victims, and that focus particularly on those who facilitate and perform FGM.
The Government strongly supports the action plan that the Director of Public Prosecutions has published with a view to bringing successful prosecutions for FGM. I am heartened and encouraged by statements from the former DPP, Keir Starmer, and his excellent successor, Alison Saunders, to the effect that it is only a matter of time before we see a prosecution. Having met the DPP on more than one occasion, I think that she is an extremely good appointment and that she is utterly committed to taking the matter forward.
The Crown Prosecution Service is currently considering, or advising the police on, 11 cases of alleged FGM. Four cases that have previously been considered, in which the police or prosecutors decided to take no further action, are being re-reviewed. The CPS is also looking at three new cases, and it has had preliminary discussions with police in relation to their investigations into four further cases that are at an early stage.
A joint CPS and police training event was held at CPS headquarters on 10 February this year, which was attended by prosecutors and police officers from across England and Wales. That was the first time such an event had been held, and it was used to raise awareness of relevant investigation and prosecution strategies by working on hypothetical case studies. It is being seen as a model for further CPS and police training events on FGM.
Kerry McCarthy
I thank the Minister for the detail that he has given us. As has already been mentioned, we are talking about a crime of which there is obvious evidence; that is not the same as an allegation of child sex abuse, where the case often relies on a child’s word that something has happened to them. I fail to understand, when such cases have been referred to the system, where they are falling down. Is it because it is not possible to identify exactly who the perpetrator is? It is obviously possible to identify that a crime has been committed. Can the Minister give us more of an explanation?
Norman Baker
That leads me to the next section of my response, which concerns the law. It may help to answer that question if I spend one or two minutes talking about that. The Chair of the Home Affairs Committee might also want to consider that question in his investigations and see whether there are better answers than I will give this afternoon. The hon. Lady has asked a perfectly valid, rational, sensible and appropriate question.
The CPS action plan commits to raising any issues about the current law with the Ministry of Justice. The DPP wrote to Ministers on 3 February with a paper identifying possible ways in which the criminal law could be strengthened to make prosecutions for FGM not only more likely, but more likely to succeed. Those include clarifying the law in relation to re-infibulation and relaxing the definition of “permanent UK resident”—that is part of the problem—in the context of extra-territorial offences. Ministerial colleagues and I are giving careful consideration to the areas identified.
Helen Jones
Has the Minister considered whether, as I suggested earlier, there ought to be a law that prohibits offences preparatory to FGM or that criminalises a failure to prevent FGM? Under such a law, the presumption —to be rebutted in law, if necessary—would be that those with care of a child were the people who ought to prevent the practice from happening.
Norman Baker
There are other offences under domestic violence legislation that may be appropriate in this case, and we must not fall into the trap—an attractive one for parliamentarians—of thinking we need only to change the law to improve matters. The hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington made the point that the law has been there for 28 years. Ensuring that prosecutions are successful is about not only the law but the cultural situations that we are dealing with.
Ms Abbott
It is a question not only of the law but of implementing the law. I do not see why we cannot prosecute someone who is an accomplice or an accessory, or who has conspired in the practice. If someone has care of a child and has knowingly sent them overseas to be cut, it is not at all clear to me why that person cannot be prosecuted.
Norman Baker
The DPP is looking at those sorts of issues as part of her work on the matter. That is why a training event was held to look at cases and work through scenarios to see what the problems were. In answer to the shadow Minister’s suggestion that there should be legislation on offences preparatory to FGM, we are open-minded about the matter and we will look at sensible suggestions that may help the situation. I simply made the point that we should not fall into the trap of assuming that a law will do our work for us when it has not done so in 28 years.
Lyn Brown
That is exactly the point that I wanted to make: the law has not worked so far, because nobody has been prosecuted. Perhaps the House needs to make a different law or amend the existing law to enable prosecution. It is not good enough to say that Members have a knee-jerk reaction of thinking that a law will make a difference. The existing law has made no difference, so let us amend it.
Norman Baker
We have to be clear about whether the law is faulty, whether there is a reluctance to use it or whether other obstacles are preventing it from being used successfully. I am not ruling out looking at the law; I am merely saying that we have to look at all possible avenues to find out exactly what the problem is. The DPP is doing that through her work with the police, and I am sure that the Home Affairs Committee will do the same in its investigations.
Keith Vaz
The points raised by Members are important in answering the question why; however, we must look forensically at why there has not been a prosecution. A change to the law, or how we implement it, might be required, but we must not rush to judgment. Although we need to act quickly, we must get it right for the future.
Norman Baker
The Home Office is looking at what has happened to date. We are looking at whether there are sufficient referrals, or whether there is a hold-up elsewhere, and we welcome comments from anywhere in the House about how matters might be improved. We are open-minded.
The Ministry of Justice is considering whether a civil law remedy might provide an additional tool with which to tackle FGM. The idea is that those afraid of being subjected to FGM, or friends or family of those at risk, could apply for an order so as to put the potential victim under the protection of the courts. That would be a proactive rather than reactive step. The MOJ is also seeking views from key stakeholders about the merits of a civil law measure and how that might work alongside criminal legislation. That aspect is already being considered in Government.
Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)
The Minister will be aware that the Queen’s Speech is coming up. If the Select Committee is able to offer suggestions on how the law should be strengthened, will there be opportunities to make legislative changes before the next general election?
Norman Baker
As I say, we will be looking very carefully and seriously at any suggestions that the Select Committee makes on the issue. As for whether there is legislative time, that is not a matter for me; it is for the Leader of the House of Commons, the right hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley), to allocate time. All I would say is that we are now approaching the last Session of this Parliament, which is already pretty crowded—
Norman Baker
With respect, the hon. Lady has not yet seen what will be in it.
Norman Baker
Members who are making comments from sedentary positions have not yet seen what will be in the next Session. It also ends before the general election in May 2015, so there is limited time for legislation, but we will look at suggestions. Given the fact that there is unanimity across all three parties on trying to deal with FGM, if legislative change is necessary, whatever the result of the general election, I am confident that whatever Government we have will try to move the issue forward.
Helen Jones
The Minister is being very generous in giving way. From what he said earlier—perhaps I misheard, or missed it—I am not clear whether the Government accept the recommendations in the joint royal colleges’ report on tackling FGM. If they do not accept any, what are they?
Norman Baker
We will wrap up our response to that report when we look at what the Select Committee says, because I think the two are linked.
Norman Baker
They are linked in terms of our overall response to dealing with FGM.
I welcome the step taken by the Secretary of State for Education—to whom I wrote—who, after meeting Fahma Mohamed, the young woman whose campaign has featured in The Guardian, committed to send to all schools guidance on keeping children safe. His Department expects to publish revised safeguarding in education guidance shortly. The statutory guidance, which replaces the 2007 guidance, will be clearer and simpler, and will direct schools to the latest expert advice on subjects such as FGM.
Over two years, the DFE is also providing more than £700,000, split between the Victoria Climbié Foundation and the Africans Unite Against Child Abuse NGO, for safeguarding work with black and minority ethnic communities. Such work of course includes FGM. Also, DFE funding for the charity Children and Families Across Borders has enabled it to produce a training app on FGM.
Along with my colleagues, the Under-Secretary of State for International Development, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), and the Minister for Schools, my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws), I met head teacher and teaching unions in mid-January to discuss how to raise awareness in schools of FGM and gender-based violence. After a constructive meeting, we will be working further with the unions on the issue.
As has been mentioned, following a successful bid to the European Union progress funding stream, the Home Office was awarded approximately €300,000 in November 2013 for work to raise awareness of FGM in the UK. As part of that work, we are launching a communications campaign aimed at parents and carers of young girls at risk of FGM. The campaign will include online advertising and posters in changing rooms and shopping centres. Materials will also be produced and provided to communities to run their own educational events and workshops in order to open up the debate on FGM. Research is currently being undertaken to test messages and campaign materials with parents, professionals and partners.
The Government has committed to developing an e-learning tool so that all practitioners—social workers, teachers, health care professionals, police and the like—will be able to undertake an introduction to FGM. We will raise awareness of the new e-learning tool by carrying out a national outreach programme with local safeguarding children boards.
We recognise that the long-term and systematic eradication of FGM in the UK will of course require practising communities to abandon the practice themselves. We have launched a £100,000 FGM community engagement initiative. Charities have been invited to bid for up to £10,000 to carry out community work to raise awareness of FGM, and we are now assessing the bids.
The Government also recognises that religious leaders can also play a role in dispelling myths about FGM. It is important to make the point that no major religion condones or requires FGM. In January, the Under-Secretary of State for International Development and I met faith groups to look for opportunities to work together to raise awareness of FGM. I was heartened by the strength of the groups’ condemnation of FGM, across all religions. I am committed to pursuing that dialogue with them and seeking their advice on how they can help us to take the campaign forward.
Despite one or two comments to the contrary by elements of our so-called popular press, it is of course vital that we spend money overseas to tackle FGM, and that we persuade those communities that adhere to the practice to stop. In my view, that is the most effective way to influence the diaspora from such countries here in the UK. The practice is not going to end in the UK before it ends in Africa.
Norman Baker
No. We are going to do our very best to protect British girls. I share the hon. Lady’s objective of an FGM-free zone—she used that phrase and I absolutely agree with her. Nevertheless, it is not realistic to assume that we can reach zero while diaspora communities here are linked with communities elsewhere in the world where FGM continues. We must approach the issue from both ends—both here in the UK, as I have indicated by what we are currently doing, and through the money we spend abroad in other communities, on which DFID is leading.
Last March, DFID announced a new £35 million flagship programme to support the Africa-led movement to end FGM—such a movement is important. That is the largest donor investment in ending FGM ever, and the programme is under way. It includes support to the UN—through UNICEF and the United Nations Population Fund—for targeted work with communities and leaders and for work at a national level on policies and legislation in 17 countries.
The programme will also include a global social change campaign, which has just been contracted to a consortium that includes leading anti-FGM campaigners. The campaign will work with communities to support them to abandon FGM, support national and Africa-regional initiatives, and galvanise a global movement to raise political and financial commitment. It will also include up to £1 million to support UK-based diaspora organisations for efforts to end the practice in their countries of origin.
This year, DFID will be launching the research component of the overall programme, in order to improve understanding of what works to end FGM. In addition, DFID has committed a separate £12 million for a programme to support efforts to end FGM in Sudan, working with the UN. At the weekend, the Prime Minister announced that he will be hosting a major event on 22 July to tackle forced marriage and FGM both internationally and here in the UK. He has set out his personal commitment to demand better rights for women and girls worldwide and to tackle these terrible practices.
Three or four Members referred to what happens in France. I am advised that FGM is not a specific criminal offence in France; instead, the French choose to prosecute under a range of general criminal offences, such as exercising violence against or seriously assaulting a child under the age of 15. It is true that, as Members mentioned, all girls in France undergo an annual health check that includes genital examination by a medical professional. The Minister responsible for public health is present and will have heard that Members have expressed interest in that approach.
It is also important to put it on the record that there are significant differences between the criminal justice systems in France and England and Wales. There is a lower standard of proof and less corroboration is required to support prosecutions in France than in England and Wales. In practice, an incriminating statement by the accused or a third person suffices for a conviction. That would not be sufficient to bring a criminal prosecution in England and Wales. The two legal systems are not comparable in that sense, which may explain some of the differences.
I was taken by the suggestion from the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee that I might speak to my opposite number in France. That is a good idea and I will ask my officials to take that forward.
Norman Baker
I do not think any corroboration is needed to prove that FGM has occurred, but we might need corroboration to demonstrate who was responsible in law. That is a different matter entirely.
Norman Baker
If it were as simple as that, we would have seen prosecutions over the past 28 years. It is not a case of whether it is the mother, the father or the grandparents. It is not as simple as that. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady is rightly frustrated by the fact that there have been no prosecutions. So am I. I do not want to stand here today defending the fact that for 28 years there have been no prosecutions. It is not defensible. However, I can assure the hon. Lady, as I have assured others, that the Home Office takes the matter seriously. The CPS and the police are taking it seriously. At the moment, 11 cases are being considered. I agree that if we can get a successful prosecution, that would be helpful as part of the strategy to try to minimise and hopefully end FGM in this country.
In conclusion, the Government takes FGM very seriously and it is high on our list of priorities, particularly mine. The Home Office co-ordinates and leads the work on FGM, but we recognise that tackling FGM and all forms of violence against women and girls needs a robust, sustained and dynamic cross-Government approach in which every Government Department—criminal justice, education, health and international development—works with the others to identify, protect and support victims and bring those responsible to justice. We believe that by implementing this approach and working together, we can end FGM and all forms of violence against women and girls. That is our aim.
I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate today for the cross-party commitment. I look forward to working with others in other parties to drive the matter forward.
Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)
Thank you, Mr Baker. Before I conclude, I shall offer Mr Vaz the opportunity to say a few words. I will also offer an imaginative opportunity to the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison), if she wishes to intervene on Mr Vaz, to put something formal on the record. However, there is no obligation to accept it.
Keith Vaz
It is a pleasure to serve under you for the first time, Mr Havard. Thank you for coming to chair this debate. I will put the fact that the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison), is here on the record. I want to pay tribute to her as a Back-Bench MP. No other Member in the House has been as assiduous as she has been. I know that a lot of Members, some of whom are here today, have worked very hard with her. I am pleased that she is now in the Department of Health, because she will be one of the Ministers who will be called before the Select Committee to explain what she is doing in Government, having done such excellent work already.
I thank all the right hon. and hon. Members who have taken part in this debate. The hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) rightly told us that in order to deal with the issue effectively, there had to be clear leadership, education and awareness. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) said that we need to be open and honest about names and exactly what the processes were. I have never known her to be someone, especially having served in the Whips Office, not prepared to put even controversial words on the record, and she did so today. I was pleased to hear about what is happening in Newham, which the Committee will visit. I also commend the work of Councillors Robinson and Terry Paul for what they have done on this issue.
The hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) has put out a six-point plan with benchmarks and recommendations to the Select Committee. We will follow what he has to say, not only because he is my next-door neighbour in Norman Shaw North, but because I know that he, as a Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Home Office, will want to make sure that that plan is adhered to. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) was, as usual, passionate and eloquent, and rightly raised issues concerned with the community. She also specifically reminded us of the international dimension. FGM happens not only to British girls; it also happens abroad.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) also intervened on a number of occasions, and it was good to hear from her. I was heartened by what both the shadow Minister and the Minister said. They both seemed committed to making the changes that are necessary. Tomorrow we begin the first set of evidence in the Select Committee. I can promise the House that we will be thorough and we will hold people to account for the lack of prosecutions. We will ask the Government what they are proposing to do, and will put forward a series of recommendations that I hope the Prime Minister can take forward when he hosts the conference in July.
Sometimes at prime ministerial conferences, Parliament is left out of the discussion. I hope that the Prime Minister will invite Members of this House to take part. I have today heard some of the most eloquent speeches in my 27 years in this House. There is a lot of expertise in Westminster and we should work together. We all want the same thing. There is a unity in Westminster Hall today that I see too rarely, unfortunately. I know I may sound like a Liberal Democrat, but I want everyone to get on together and work together on the same agenda, because the real suffering of our children and the women in this country is there for everyone to see. FGM is a cruel, horrific crime and we will bring the people responsible to justice.
Question put and agreed to.
Written Statements
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EU Informal Foreign Affairs Council
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The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Michael Fallon)
My hon. Friend the Minister for Trade and Investment, Lord Livingston of Parkhead, has made the following statement:
The EU informal Foreign Affairs Council (Trade) took place in Athens on 27 and 28 February 2014. I represented the UK on all the issues discussed at the meetings. A summary of those discussions follows.
Dinner on 27 February
Doha Development Agenda (DDA)
At a working dinner on 27 February, there was consensus among member states that implementation of the package agreed at last year’s Bali World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial conference must remain the priority alongside the rapid conclusion of existing sectoral initiatives such as the information technology agreement. Ministers also recognised that further implementation of DDA would require some commitment on agriculture.
Main Meeting on 28 February
Legislative
Commissioner De Gucht said there was a reasonable chance of reaching agreement on the financial responsibility regulation. Member states refuted pressure from the Commission to get this agreed before the final Session of the European Parliament in April.
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations
Commissioner De Gucht gave an update on progress and Ministers discussed key chapters within the EU/US negotiations, in particular the importance of regulatory coherence and public procurement within the agreement. Commissioner De Gucht spoke of his desire to achieve as much as possible over the course of 2014.
Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs)
Recent progress on the west Africa EPA was welcomed and the prospects for progress with EPAs with eastern and southern Africa were discussed.
Ukraine
Commissioner De Gucht highlighted that the trade agreement formed a major part of the association agreement. Ministers discussed the timing of implementation of trade liberalisation with Ukraine.
EU—Mercosur
Commissioner De Gucht was optimistic on a possible exchange of offers in the coming months. The Commission undertook to consult with member states before presenting the EU offer and reminded the meeting that the next stock-take would be in September 2014.
Geographical Indications (GIs)
Ministers discussed the economic importance of GIs and the issues of counterfeit goods, consumer choice and labelling. I recognised the economic significance, citing the €5 billion export market for Scotch whisky, and stressed the importance of consumers being empowered to make informed decisions by being aware of the difference between genuine EU products and local imitations.
City Deal
(10 years, 1 month ago)
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The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Greg Clark)
Following the successful completion of the first wave of city deals in July 2012 with the “core cities”, the Government committed to work with a further 20 cities and their wider areas to negotiate a second wave of city deals in October 2012.
I can today inform the House that the Government and business and civic leaders in Southend-on-Sea and the South East local enterprise partnership have reached agreement on a city deal.
The Southend-on-Sea city deal capitalises on opportunities to increase the rates of entrepreneurship and innovation locally, to realise the full potential of this major centre within the South East local enterprise partnership area.
The city deal will deliver incubator space, a one-stop-shop for direct business support and bespoke business support programmes. This will drive jobs growth and increase business start-ups and survival rates.
Business and civic leaders in Southend-on-Sea anticipate that the deal will create or safeguard more than 555 jobs over the next three years and provide support to 1,350 businesses across south Essex. And as a result of the deal there will be a £1.3 million redevelopment of central library in Victoria avenue.
Defence Infrastructure Organisation
(10 years, 1 month ago)
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The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Hammond)
On 24 May 2012, I informed the House that the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) would commence a procurement process to assess whether the involvement of a strategic business partner offered the best value-for-money solution for defence. Today, following the successful conclusion of the competitive stage of the procurement process, I am pleased to announce our decision that the appointment of a strategic business partner does represent the best way forward for the DIO and value for money for the taxpayer. After analysis of the proposals received, I can inform the House that Capita, which is working in conjunction with URS and PA Consulting, is the preferred bidder. Final negotiations will now be concluded with a view to contracting in the spring.
Following the establishment of the DIO in April 2011, a significant transformation programme was put in place to ensure that the organisation would deliver better value for money for taxpayers. Alongside this process, the defence board considered the outline case for the introduction of a strategic business partner for the DIO. The case set out the potential financial and wider benefits of adopting a different business model in the DIO whereby a strategic business partner would be engaged to drive the transformation of the DIO further and deliver rationalisation and efficiency improvements.
A private sector strategic business partner will enable the DIO to make a significant contribution to departmental savings and asset realisation targets, as set out in the 2010 strategic defence and security review and will strengthen and enhance the service the DIO provides across defence. The strategic business partner will focus on improving the skills base across the DIO, enhancing commercial expertise and change management skills and will bring additional capability to the DIO, including access to market-competitive knowledge and skills via the partner’s parent organisations; better incentivisation and management of staff against performance through the introduction of a more commercial approach to the business and access to private funding for “spend-to-save” efficiency improvements.
Capita has been selected as the preferred bidder for a 10-year contract, with payment for services to be made through an incentive-based arrangement. Following contract award in spring 2014, the strategic business partner will integrate an executive management team into the DIO and assume full executive responsibility for the organisation once the mobilisation activities have been completed. For the first phase of the contract, the DIO will remain fully within the Ministry of Defence. During this period, however, the strategic business partner will help the DIO prepare to move to an incorporated model, currently assumed to occur in 2016, which will entail the creation of a Government Company (GovCo) to manage defence infrastructure. This would be a separate legal entity, 100% owned by the Secretary of State for Defence and managed by the strategic business partner under contract. Under this innovative arrangement, the MOD will oversee the activities and performance of the new company through a governing authority set up within the Department.
The selection of the preferred bidder to be the strategic business partner to the DIO, represents an important step in the fundamental reform of defence following Lord Levene’s independent review in 2011, which recommended that
“enabling services should be delivered as efficiently, effectively and professionally as possible.”
It demonstrates the Department’s continuing commitment, and ability, to bring in private sector skills, where doing so will increase efficiency by cutting costs and improving delivery.
Contingencies Fund Advance
(10 years, 1 month ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)
The Ministry of Justice requires an advance to discharge its commitments which are set out in its supplementary estimate 2013-14, published on 12 February 2014 as HC 1006 (CG supply estimates, supplementary estimates).
Parliamentary approval for additional resources of £954.167 million for existing services has been sought in a supplementary estimate for the Ministry of Justice. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £93 million will be met by repayable cash advances from the Contingencies Fund. This is a temporary cash advance due to the timing of Royal Assent for the Supply and Appropriation (Anticipation and Adjustments) Bill 2013-14, and does not reflect an overspend.
Prisoners (Release on Temporary Licence)
(10 years, 1 month ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)
Carefully managing prisoners into the community on temporary licence toward the end of their sentence is a key part of efforts to rehabilitate them back into society. But this should never be at the expense of public safety which remains our absolute priority.
In the summer of 2013, in separate incidents, three prisoners failed to comply with the conditions on which they were temporarily released from prison with terrible consequences. One of these prisoners has since been convicted of murder and another of attempted armed robbery. The case in respect of the third prisoner is still subject to the legal process.
Such failures should not happen and, as a result, I immediately commissioned two reviews. We have undertaken an internal review of the policy and practice of the temporary release of prisoners. I also asked Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons to examine circumstances around these three serious incidents. I have accepted the recommendations of the chief inspector’s report, which cannot yet be published due to those outstanding legal proceedings. The chief inspector’s report and recommendation was focused on the three specific incidents and I have incorporated these recommendations into a fundamental and wider reform of the policy and its procedures.
Release on temporary licence (ROTL) describes the arrangements under which prisoners can be released into the community towards the end of their sentences for rehabilitative purposes. It will continue to play an important role in public protection by ensuring that offenders are tested in the community under strict conditions before being released. It also provides a valuable means of helping prisoners prepare for their resettlement in the community by, for example, finding work or rebuilding links with their families, which helps to reduce reoffending.
In the vast majority of cases ROTL is used effectively and successfully. Prisoners fail to comply with licence conditions in less than 1% of cases. In 2012, around five in every 100,000 releases were recorded as resulting in failure due to arrest on suspicion of a further offence.
However, the failures of last summer have highlighted a number of weaknesses in current arrangements which I am determined to address.
I am making changes to all ROTL releases to improve the decision making across the system. ROTL is not a right. At all times during their sentence a prisoner will have to demonstrate the right behaviour and commitment to change. For ROTL to be granted, there will need to be a very clear benefit to how it will aid rehabilitation and increase the chances of an offender leading a crime-free life on release. There will also be a more thorough assessment of the risks before temporary release is authorised and a more consistent and robust response for prisoners who fail to comply with their licence.
I am also introducing a new scheme of restricted release on temporary licence for those prisoners who have committed serious crimes in the past. This new process will feature:
More stringent risk-assessment procedures carried out by highly trained probation professionals.
In addition to tagging, more robust monitoring arrangements when an offender is on temporary licence in the community
In the future, all prisoners who are allowed release on temporary licence will be tagged, regardless of the nature of their previous offences. The next generation of tagging contracts, which are due to come into operation next year, will improve the way we monitor prisoners’ whereabouts while they are in the community. The use of this new technology will also serve as a strong deterrent as prisoners will know that their location can be accurately checked.
These changes will be implemented in the coming months. The new restricted ROTL scheme will be operational by the autumn. We will introduce electronic location monitoring as the technology becomes available.
Taken together, this package of measures will improve the consistency, risk assessment and monitoring of releases on temporary licence, ensuring we make more effective use of this tool in safely preparing prisoners for permanent release and better protecting the public.
Mersey Gateway Bridge
(10 years, 1 month ago)
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The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Patrick McLoughlin)
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury on 4 December re-confirmed as part of the national infrastructure plan that funding would be made available to the Mersey gateway bridge scheme subject to successful completion of procurement and Government approval.
As part of that approval process, the Government have agreed to provide a commitment to Halton borough council (“Halton”), the promoters of the scheme, to stand behind any shortfall to the level of toll revenue required to meet Halton’s financial obligations and I am today laying in the House a departmental minute giving particulars of the contingent liability created. I will also lay a copy of the minute in the Library of the House of Commons.
The Mersey gateway bridge project involves the construction of a new 1 km long cable-stayed, dual three-lane bridge over the River Mersey between Widnes and Runcorn plus associated changes to approach roads. Congestion associated with the Silver Jubilee bridge is seen as a constraint to economic regeneration and growth both locally, within the borough, and across the wider Liverpool city region and the north-west.
The bridge’s construction and maintenance has been procured under a design, build, finance and operate (DBFO) contract which is on a fixed-price basis and under which payments do not start to flow until it opens. The initial development costs, land purchase, decontamination and other project costs will be funded through a grant from the Department for Transport (the Department), Halton BC contributions and other third-party contributions.
Following operations start, the majority of the funding will be provided through users in the form of tolling of both the new bridge and existing Silver Jubilee bridge over the 26.5-year DBFO contract. In addition the Department is providing a graduated, decreasing resource availability support grant funding over 12 years starting in 2017-18 (following the opening of the bridge) to 2028-29.
As Halton is a small authority with limited resources, to ensure that the scheme can proceed the Department intends to commit that in addition to the availability support grant it will stand behind any shortfall to the level of toll revenue required to meet Halton’s financial obligations. Full details of the Department’s proposed commitment can be found in the departmental minute.
The likelihood and scale of the additional availability support grant required would depend on the robustness of the base case toll volumes and revenues and also the scale of the shortfall of the actual revenues against the project costs. In an (unrealistic) worst case scenario where the bridge opens with zero toll revenues, the Department would pay all costs. In addition to the committed departmental availability support grant, under this scenario the additional availability support grant which represents the contingent liability would be up to circa £16.6 million in the first year (following utilisation of the £19.0 million liquidity reserve), c. £37.6 million in 2018-19 and thereafter rising by an average of c. £2 million per annum. The total contingent liability on this basis over the 26.5 years would be c. £1,698 million (following utilising of the £19.0 million liquidity fund).
If the liability is called, provision for any payment will be sought through the normal supply procedure.
Subject to successful completion of all remaining approvals and completion of financial close, construction of the scheme is scheduled to start in April 2014 with the scheme opening in 2017.
Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council
(10 years, 1 month ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)
The Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council will be held on 10 March 2014 in Brussels.
The Council will seek a general approach on a Council decision on the guidelines for the employment policies of the member states, and agreement in principle on a text of a decision on a tripartite social summit for growth and employment. As the latter is subject to the European Union Act 2011, its final agreement and adoption will require the approval of Parliament by primary legislation.
There will be a policy debate on the European semester, for a contribution to the March European Council.
The Council will be invited to adopt a recommendation on a quality framework for traineeships and the Council conclusions and subsequent reports on the 2014 annual growth survey and joint employment report and the social situation in the EU.
The Commission will present its communication on the “The EU 2020 headline targets” which will be followed by an exchange of views.
Under “any other business”, the Commission will present its proposals for the gender recast directive report and the report on the two anti-discrimination directives. The presidency will report on ongoing issues and there will be a presentation from the Chairs of the Social Policy Committee and the Employment Committee on their 2014 work programmes.
House of Lords
Railways: Line Resilience
(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Berkeley
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made in commissioning a study into alternative inland resilient rail routes to avoid the coastal route between Exeter and Newton Abbot.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Kramer) (LD)
My Lords, the Government have commissioned Network Rail to undertake a study to identify options for providing a resilient rail route west of Exeter and rail access to the coastal communities in the Torbay area. We have also asked Network Rail to implement schemes already identified to resolve weather-related problems in the Thames valley and west of England. However, the immediate priority is to restore rail services on this route as soon as possible.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
I am grateful to the Minister for that Answer but, as we have had a lovely weekend and spring is clearly in the air, it is very easy for Ministers to forget about the disasters of the winter and to hope that they go away and that they will not have to spend the money. Will the Minister agree to come back to the House in a year’s time, just before the election, and say, “We have implemented all these long-term resilience measures that I mentioned, and a few more, and they are either finished or well on their way, and funded”?
Baroness Kramer
I always hesitate to say anything other than yes to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. As he will be well aware, we have a timetable for the long-term resilience project. We have completed the projects that were timetabled for 2013-14, such as the Whiteball tunnel, and others are timetabled for future years. However, the essence of what the noble Lord is talking about in terms of having a programme to make sure that we achieve resilience will be done over the next few months. The study that Network Rail is doing will lead to an interim report being published in July, which will result in a very important discussion in this House.
Lord Bradshaw (LD)
Will my noble friend also take into account in her consideration the fact that, in finding an alternative route, the opportunity probably exists to cut 20 or 25 minutes off the journey time from Cornwall, which would be a massive improvement, akin to that achieved by HS2 between London and Birmingham? Perhaps she would have a look at that.
Baroness Kramer
I hope that very shortly we will have the terms of reference for the Network Rail study, which it intends to carry out in close co-operation with local authorities and LEPs. Network Rail has made a request to me that people pass ideas on particular routes back to it directly. However, if any Peer wishes to do so through my office, I will make sure that that information is communicated so that the study is as thorough as it needs to be.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister’s initial Answer was very welcome and we look forward to seeing the outcome of those studies. Will she take this opportunity to congratulate Network Rail on bringing the line through Dawlish back into use significantly earlier than appeared to be likely? I understand that Network Rail had something like 100 people working seven days a week on the restoration of the line, and it is to come back into use on 4 April or even earlier. I declare an interest as a member of the First Great Western stakeholder board.
Baroness Kramer
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, that that is probably the most delightful question I have ever received because it indeed gives me the opportunity to congratulate and thank Network Rail for its incredibly hard work both during the days of crisis and since. We expect the Dawlish line to be back in use no later than 4 April—well in time for Easter—and that took a very strenuous effort. While I am at the Dispatch Box, perhaps I may also thank: the travelling public, who handled this situation so well; the bus and coach companies, which provided an alternative to rail; the train operators themselves, which provided, for example, special ticketing arrangements whereby people did not lose out because they could not make advance bookings; Flybe, which doubled the number of its flights to Newquay; and probably others whom I have missed. There are many to thank and I appreciate this opportunity to do so.
Lord Dykes (LD)
How long will it be before the completion of the new north Oxford to London line?
Baroness Kramer
I say to my noble friend Lord Dykes that I do not have the data in the foremost part of my mind. As he knows, the matter is very much under discussion and I will get back to him with whatever detail is available.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, among those for whom there is a residual problem are the poor, beleaguered commuters travelling from Hastings to London, who for weeks now have had disruption due to flooding and have been trying to secure refunds from the rail operative. What are the Government doing to bring those rail companies into line, ensure that people are given a full refund for the tremendous inconvenience that they are suffering, which goes on and on, and bring this to an end quickly?
Baroness Kramer
This is the Tonbridge to Hastings route, which was closed because of a landslip. My understanding is that the reopening is delayed due to ground movement. We very much hope that the line will open again shortly but if there are issues—and I understand from the noble Lord that there are—will he pass them to my department and we will make sure that that they are passed on to the appropriate institutions for proper answer?
Lord Jenkin of Roding (Con)
I draw my noble friend’s attention to the excellent report produced by the Department of Energy and Climate Change on the severe weather over Christmas 2013. This indicates that a great deal can and has been done but one needs to know about it and find out what it all is. Would not a report of that kind, produced by my noble friend’s department, be extremely valuable?
Baroness Kramer
I assure your Lordships that there is constant monitoring, and a cross-departmental ministerial recovery group now meets weekly to discuss flooding issues. We take it in turns within my department to attend that meeting and make sure that the process is ongoing. It is also accurate to say that responsibilities have been divided up among a number of us to make sure that monitoring is effective; my responsibility will be as the ministerial representative for flood recovery for Gloucestershire and Worcestershire. Similarly, others have regional responsibilities and I will make sure that we report back as we get information through that process.
Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister knows that the floods have already cost something like £170 million. We are aware that the Prime Minister says that money is no object, and we will bear that in mind when the costings come through. However, how will Network Rail cope with the additional funding that will be necessary, either for the alternative line to which my noble friend Lord Bradshaw referred or for making the Dawlish line absolutely secure? Is the Minister being somewhat premature in praising Network Rail without convincing everyone that its funding will be adequate?
Baroness Kramer
Perhaps I can give the noble Lord some reassurance. Network Rail has estimated the cost of resilience projects—not recovery, which is handled separately—at £31 million. It is putting £5 million of its existing funding into the pot, and new money of £26 million is going towards that. If, when we get the interim report, we are starting to look at something much bigger—effectively, new construction—we will need to sit down and plan that properly.
Women: Board Membership
(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Seccombe
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they are making towards their target of 25% of the membership of FTSE 100 company boards being women by 2015.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, women now account for 20.4% of board members in FTSE 100 companies. That is the figure from January 2014, which is up from 12.5% in February 2011. Although the figures are going in the right direction, we need to keep up progress to reach the 25% target. We need 50 new female directors to be appointed to FTSE 100 companies in order to reach the 2015 target.
Baroness Seccombe (Con)
My Lords, that is most encouraging news, but there is still a way to go to reach that 25%. Does my noble friend agree that independent and individual mentoring has helped to achieve this success? I am sure that we all know women who should have been appointed in the past but were always passed over.
Baroness Northover
I thank my noble friend for her encouraging comments. I am sure that mentoring has indeed helped, and I think that transparency and pressure have helped as well.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, would the Minister care to tell the House how the Government are doing in increasing the number of women on public bodies? Those figures seem to be slightly more woeful than the ones for corporate bodies. Secondly, I am sure that the noble Baroness is aware that twice as many women as men leave the corporate sector once they reach mid-level management. Given that, does she agree that, alongside measures to increase the number of women at board level, we need to fix the leaks, as it were, in the talent pipeline and ensure that women are properly represented at every level of an organisation? How does she think this might be brought about?
Baroness Northover
We are aiming for women to account for 50% of new public appointments by 2015. They are currently averaging 45%, so we are moving in the right direction. The noble Baroness is quite right that we need to address this at every level. One of the beneficial things about the Davies approach to company boards is that it is also having an effect on the response of companies at other levels. This issue has to be addressed at every level.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey (Con)
Is my noble friend aware that the Institute of Directors and many other professional bodies could also contribute in this regard by mentoring some of their women members? They may not be as numerous even as 25%, but there are some excellent engineers, accountants and lawyers and so on who could, with assistance, be very good members of boards and, indeed, members of those professional organisations.
Baroness Northover
My noble friend is absolutely right. I do not think that there is a dearth of talent; it is a matter of making sure that those people end up on boards. There is a lot that we ourselves can do. As I did in the debate on International Women’s Day last Thursday, I should like to mention the two companies in the FTSE 100 that have not yet appointed women. Last year, there were five; significantly, two dropped out of the FTSE 100 and one of them—the one that I mentioned—has now appointed a woman. There are two left: Glencore Xstrata and Antofagasta. Perhaps I may point out that Glencore was speedy enough to seek help from the United Kingdom Government when it was trying to finalise a deal overseas. I quote from it:
“We seek to apply best practice, ensuring that our approach is up-to-date and relevant”.
Hmm. I come to Antofagasta, which is Chilean based. Tomorrow, Chile swears in as its new president Michelle Bachelet, the formidable former head of UN Women, so I think that we have a pincer movement here.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)
My Lords, can the Minister tell us to what extent she and the Government believe that it is the yearly reports that are required on progress from each of the companies involved in this scheme that have had a major effect in getting the continuous stream of improvements, although I thoroughly agree with her that there is still a long way to go?
Baroness Northover
The noble Baroness is right that transparency and reporting are absolutely key. She will know that Charlotte Sweeney has just reported on the voluntary code among those who are recruiting for those positions. She notes that only 25% of those headhunting firms even mentioned this on their websites, so they themselves have a long way to go.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, can the Minister tell us how many of the FTSE 100 companies have women chief executives? What are the Government doing to improve the position?
Baroness Northover
The noble Lord puts his finger on a very important point. There are only four female chief executives in the FTSE 100 at the moment. It is indeed an area in which companies need to make a lot more progress.
Lord Smith of Clifton (LD)
Does my noble friend agree with what I said last Thursday regarding gender balance in the Cabinet? The battle for gender equality will not be won on the playing fields of Eton or Westminster School.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
My Lords, following up on that excellent question, can I commend the Minister for her excellent answers to all the questions today? Does that not show up that the two people who also need a pincer movement are Clegg and Cameron?
Houses of Parliament: Education Centre
Lord Flight
To ask the Chairman of Committees what representations the House Committee made to the House of Commons Commission regarding the proposed education centre to be built in Victoria Tower Gardens; and whether any risk assessment has been carried out.
Lord Flight (Con)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest in that my wife is a Westminster councillor.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Sewel)
My Lords, the House Committee has informed the commission that the House of Lords will not contribute to the capital costs of the demountable education centre, estimated to be more than £6 million, on grounds of value for money. The House Committee has serious concerns about health and safety and has requested a risk assessment of the proposed access routes, which is expected to be conducted before the Easter Recess. We remain committed to the provision of an education service, as opposed to the specific building.
Lord Flight
My Lords, as well as the objections of the House Committee, the Royal Parks Board, which owns Victoria Tower Gardens, made strong objections to the House of Commons Commission but was overruled by the Secretary of State of the DCLG. The City of Westminster planning committee was divided 3:3 with very strong objections being made, but the chairman gave his casting vote in favour, contrary to convention. Local residents are objecting strongly as no notices of the planning proposal were posted in adjacent residential areas. Above all, Victoria Tower Gardens was created as an open space more than 100 years ago to give a setting to the House of Lords building. Surely it would be a grave mistake to build on nearly a quarter of it in a style that is not sympathetic to that of the Palace of Westminster. Has the House Committee any powers to enable this project to be reconsidered, or at least delayed?
The Chairman of Committees
My Lords, in this instance the House of Lords has no powers to ask the House of Commons to think again. However, we are concerned about the health and safety issues and access routes, and we requested a full study to be undertaken. Ultimately it is the Clerk of the Parliaments, as corporate officer, who is responsible for health and safety on the Lords part of the Parliamentary Estate and he will need to decide whether he feels that the proposed routes are safe.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)
Does not the Chairman of Committees agree that the work done by the education and outreach department is extremely important and deserves our support? Will he confirm to the House that the Information Committee has been actively advocating a facility of this kind for at least seven years? Is not the real risk that this institution will become increasingly irrelevant in future? Why? Because so little is understood about the excellent work that is done here.
The Chairman of Committees
I thank the noble Lord for his question because it enables me to underline the complete commitment of this House and the House Committee to the work of the Education Service. Many Peers take that upon themselves as active participants in the outreach programme going to schools. It is true that the original, if you like, en principe or in principle decision—there is a subtle difference between the two—was made in 2007. However, that was a different world.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)
My Lords, will the Chairman of Committees indicate to those carrying out the risk assessment that we do not want a fudge? We want a proper risk assessment which takes into account the fact that it is proposed that tens of thousands of children will be required to pass through to Black Rod’s Garden from Victoria Tower Gardens through what is effectively now a builder’s yard, and which will remain a builder’s yard throughout the restoration and renewal programme.
The Chairman of Committees
The noble Lord makes a very strong point of which the House Committee is well aware. That is the reason why it has asked for a risk assessment to be carried out. I have utter confidence that it will be a thorough and robust risk assessment.
Baroness Boothroyd (CB)
My Lords, would it not be appropriate for a well chosen delegation from this House to see the House of Commons Commission on this issue?
Lord Elton (Con)
My Lords, can the Minister broaden his Answer a little to take in the aesthetic content of this problem? Who has the dominant voice there? What is the role of English Heritage? How has it come to be accepted without further discussion in this House?
The Chairman of Committees
My Lords, it is fair to say that in planning issues, under which I include the aesthetic dimension, the key player is Westminster City Council. Having dealt with the internal decision-making of your Lordships’ House for some time, which is on occasion somewhat Byzantine, I do not wish to speculate on the internal decision-making of Westminster City Council.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
So, my Lords, it would appear that there is something to be said for health and safety. Will the Chairman of Committees convey to the Clerk of the Parliaments that this House will be right behind him when he comes to make that decision?
The Chairman of Committees
I think the noble Lord has already conveyed that.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
My Lords, was not an alternative site suggested at 1 Parliament Street? Why has that not been considered?
The Chairman of Committees
That is absolutely true. The position of the House Committee was that in the relatively short term—and this demountable building will be in operation for, at the most, 10 years—it would be better for the permanent solution to be part of the restoration and renewal plans and that, in the mean time, it seemed to us that provision was capable of being made within the existing Parliamentary Estate, and particularly 1 Parliament Street, but that was not acceptable to the House of Commons.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, following up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, none of us is against people having access to this building and appreciating its aesthetic status, but is it not rather perverse to seek to damage that status in pursuit of the education which people are coming for?
London Underground: Industrial Action
(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Carrington of Fulham
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact on the economy of the industrial action on the London Underground in February.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Kramer) (LD)
My Lords, the Government have not made such an assessment. Responsibility for London Underground, including industrial disputes, is a matter for the Mayor of London and Transport for London. The industrial action last month was regrettable and will undoubtedly have had a significant economic impact, but there is no straightforward or standard way of quantifying this.
Lord Carrington of Fulham (Con)
I am grateful to my noble friend for that response. Does she agree that the major damage caused by the strike was not monetary, but in terms of the aggravation, frustration and inconvenience caused to the poor benighted citizens of London? This raises the question of whether it is not time to reconsider whether strikes in public sector monopolies should be made illegal, or at the very least whether trade unions should be required to get a vote of two-thirds of the workforce in favour of action before calling a strike.
Baroness Kramer
My Lords, I join in celebrating the heroism of Londoners in coping with such situations, which are very stressful and inconvenient. Last autumn, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills announced a review of industrial disputes, and we hope to hear more detail on that shortly. At this moment in time the two sides in the London Underground issue are in negotiation and are due back at ACAS on 4 April. I think that this is a good time not to pour petrol on flames.
Lord Bradshaw (LD)
Will my noble friend take account of the fact that at many London terminus stations connecting with the Underground, there are huge queues of people and a lot of machines that work only slowly? For London Transport to say at this time, “We are going to close all the ticket offices”, sends out the wrong signal. London Transport needs to overhaul what is going on, at which point it will have a much better case to take to the trade unions.
Baroness Kramer
I am afraid that essentially I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, on this one. Only 3% of journeys actually include going to a ticket office. The number of visits has fallen extremely sharply as people turn to buying online, using machines, taking advantage of systems like the Oyster card and, increasingly, using their bank cards. As he will know, the goal of London Underground is to change the role of those working with these ticketing issues by bringing them out from behind the glass of the ticket office and on to the platforms. They will be given a much wider range of responsibilities to help people, building on the kind of experience we had with the Games makers in the Olympics. They should be able to teach and train people to use the machines and provide support in a much more effective and flexible way. I would think that that has to be the future and a reasonable path to tread.
Lord Balfe (Con)
Does my noble friend agree that we should think very carefully before we impose further restrictions on the freedom of trade union action? If one looks at the strike, one can see that it was not very successful at all. There are also fundamental matters of human rights involved in legislating in this area.
Baroness Kramer
Your Lordships are right to say that Transport for London, or London Underground, was able to run about 40% of its trains during the strike and that Londoners, although under stress, found different ways to get to work—as Londoners do. As I say, at this point in time the two parties are talking, and I hope very much that they are talking constructively. BIS is planning a review of the whole area of industrial disputes, and I think it is best if I do not add yet another set of views.
Lord Kinnock (Lab)
Does the Minister accept that the consequences of strikes in public transport are invariably that people are deeply inconvenienced, demoralised and absolutely furious—with justification? However, would she advise those who are asking for bans on strikes in public transport to acknowledge the fact that in a free society, if workers in crucial services are denied by law the right to strike, their resentments and difficulties will then find expression in even more inconvenient ways? That is the reality of democracy.
Baroness Kramer
All Members of this House recognise that there is complexity around all of these issues. They need a great deal of thought and a great deal of debate.
Lord Naseby (Con)
Is my noble friend able to clarify the figure of 3% that she quoted? Does it not represent millions of journeys made on the Underground, and are not the majority of those made by tourists? Do we not want to be able to attract tourists?
Baroness Kramer
I do not have a breakdown of how the 3% is divided up although I assume that tourists are a significant part of that number. If tourists can turn to someone on the platform—someone who is clearly in a uniform, who is able to help them and who possibly has access to another language, where necessary, if that might make it easier—and ask that person about their journey and be directed, that could make London Underground very attractive to them. It is similar to what the Games makers did during the Olympics.
Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is incredibly impolitic to raise the issue of trade union rights at this time, when in fact the second potential industrial action of this dispute was called off? The dispute is now before ACAS; both sides are talking constructively and we hope for a successful outcome. If there is going to be political point-scoring, all of us can do that. After all, in 2010 the Mayor of London said:
“This Mayor takes his promises to Londoners extremely seriously. Every station that has a ticket office will continue to have one”.
Baroness Kramer
I believe that debate in this House and in this country as a democracy is always good, no matter the timing of it. I join your Lordships in hoping for a very successful outcome to these negotiations.
Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)
My Lords, I invite the Minister to attend Paddington station in the early hours—say between 8 am and 10 am every morning—to see the long queues forming for the ticket office. She might revise her views if she did so. I hope that Transport for London might do the same and recognise that there is validity in the trade union case, at least in that respect.
Baroness Kramer
I have often been to Paddington station, and obviously there are additional issues for stations linked to the overground rail. Once again, this is a different way of providing a service, not a case of eliminating the service. It is important to consider how those systems can work effectively. It will ultimately be a decision for TfL.
Supply and Appropriation (Anticipation and Adjustments) Bill
(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Immigration Bill
(10 years, 1 month ago)
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The Earl of Listowel
“Pregnancy exemption
Any—(a) restriction on eligibility for services, or(b) charge,in this Part shall not apply to any person who is pregnant.”
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
In moving Amendment 48, I will speak to Amendments 55, 63 and 65 and support my noble friend Lord Patel’s Amendment 60. I apologise for not having been able to take part at Second Reading. Perhaps it would be helpful to the Committee if I paused for a moment.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns (Con)
My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, is trying to introduce his amendment and I would ask that noble Lords leave quietly. That was quite a din. I also remind noble Lords that, when they leave, they should not walk in front of the speaker. It not only drowns him out, it means we cannot even see him.
The Earl of Listowel
I am most grateful for that intervention. Amendment 48 would exempt pregnant women from all charges and penalties associated with Part 3, particularly with regard to health charges and concerns for landlords about having tenants who might not be legal migrants. I want to take pregnant women out of this picture.
I recognise the difficulties that the Government face in terms of immigration. I grew up in Hampstead but I have lived and worked near Bermondsey, and I know that for the people of Bermondsey and other similar areas there can be more challenges due to immigration than in places such as Hampstead, around schooling and access to the health service but particularly around housing. There are real concerns and the shortage of housing can be a cause of social tension.
This, too, is a knotty political question, but if the Government and Opposition could come to some consensus about how to provide enough social housing and affordable housing for our people, many of these tensions might be far less acute than they are today. I know that is a great challenge but it relates to this issue and the concerns of our people about migration.
Perhaps it is helpful to think about how maternity has a certain sacred association. If one wanders around the Sainsbury Wing and looks at the earliest paintings there, one sees paintings from the 13th century of the Madonna and child, and nativity scenes. Respect for the mother and child during that very important period at the beginning of a family is at the heart of our Christian faith. It is not too surprising that France, Spain and Portugal—some of the Catholic countries—exempt pregnant women from any charges for accessing their health services. It points to the wisdom of the great faiths, as we increasingly realise how vital the very earliest months of a child’s life, from conception through the first two years of life, are to the successful later development of children.
Indeed, the right honourable Iain Duncan Smith did very important work concerning early intervention with families. Graham Allen MP, who worked with him in that endeavour, has set up the Early Intervention Foundation, which aims to raise awareness of the crucial period between conception and two years of age, and perhaps a little bit beyond that. Frank Field MP and Andrea Leadsom MP have set up the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Conception to Age Two—The First 1,001 Days, to really focus our minds on this crucial time in a child’s development. It takes several years for a child to grow into the physical stature of an adult but the brain is developing extremely rapidly in the first months of life and achieves its main development by age four. It is crucial to think carefully about how we treat mothers and their very young children.
I should have said something about newborns in my amendment. I talked only about pregnant women, but I hope that the Government will also think about mothers with newborn children within the first two years of life.
On several occasions I have had the privilege to speak to mothers in temporary accommodation through the Barnardo’s Families in Temporary Accommodation project. What came through particularly from their stories was the sense of isolation that they experienced and how difficult it was because of their temporary accommodation—they may be placed a long way from family or anybody of their ethnic group.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My amendment is the second in this group and is the only one that deals with domestic violence. I thought that it would be helpful to include the amendment in this group rather than have a separate debate on domestic violence.
I want first to turn to the housing provisions, which require landlords to check the immigration status of those to whom they let. I said at Second Reading that we have serious concerns about these measures and we have tabled a number of amendments to the relevant part of the Bill. I shall not go into detail here because it is a separate debate for, one hopes, later today.
I want to put on record our concern about the workability and what I will refer to—I hope that this is accurate—as the unintended consequences of the provisions. The Government should be aware of the impact of the proposals on vulnerable persons, such as pregnant women and many others, as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, highlighted. The amendments in this group highlight the concerns about those issues.
Not everybody in life is well organised, not everybody has all their documentation up to date and not all landlords will be able to fulfil—or, perhaps, even understand—all their obligations under the Bill. People can make mistakes. I think that I am a well organised person, but can I say that I have never forgotten to pay a bill or never missed my MoT date? Of course I cannot; we all make mistakes.
We learnt that when the former Immigration Minister, Mr Mark Harper, had to resign. Even with all his good intentions and integrity, wanting to obey the law and trying to do so, he still made a mistake. There are great concerns about those whose lifestyles may be a bit more chaotic, or those who are here legally but do not have the right kind of documentation. That could include pregnant women and victims of domestic violence. They might end up being refused accommodation as a result of these measures because landlords do not want to take the risk of making a mistake. The danger is that that could result in them falling into the hands of rogue landlords or becoming homeless.
I hope that the Minister can be clear on whether those issues were considered when discussions were held on including the provisions in the Bill. If they were considered and the Government are aware of all those consequences for vulnerable groups, how will they address them—in particular, under this group of amendments, pregnant women and victims of domestic violence?
Most of the amendments referred to the health charges. There is a lot of confusion about the measures in the Bill and other measures announced by the Government. They must recognise that they must take responsibility for any confusion. The Government’s rhetoric and the sweeping statements that we have heard about what they call health tourism add nothing to the seriousness and quality of the debate. Again, I do not want to go into the wider issues—we will have a wider debate on health charges later, and I will raise the bulk of the questions and concerns that we have then—but I want to ask a few questions on specific issues raised by this group of amendments.
I want to be clear from the outset that we agree with the principle of a one-off health surcharge. It is not unreasonable that those who use the NHS contribute to it. My understanding is that all those who have paid the charge would then have full access to the NHS, but the Government’s consultation document then excludes a few treatments. That is not in the Bill, but it starts to cause confusion. In particular, the consultation document states:
“It may be appropriate to build in a very limited set of excluded treatments for which specific charging should still apply. These might include any or all of the following”.
One of those in the list is services for pre-existing pregnancies. As I said, that is not in the Bill, and that is why I want some clarification. As I read it, that seems to mean that women who have paid the visa charge and come to the UK already pregnant—presumably at whatever stage of pregnancy, whether they know about it or not—will nevertheless have to pay for treatment related to their pregnancy. Is that all treatment or some treatment? We just do not know, and the Bill does not provide any clarity on that. I wonder whether when those women get their visas they get a pregnancy testing kit at the same time to check whether they are pregnant.
A number of groups are to be exempt from paying the health surcharge on humanitarian grounds. We totally support that; it is absolutely right. The Department of Health said that that would include refugees, asylum seekers and victims of human trafficking—presumably, whether or not they are pregnant. I know that victims of trafficking will now be debated in a separate group, but I want to press the Minister on how this will work in practice, as there will be cases when they will present to the authorities only when they are pregnant. Trafficked women will not, by definition, have paid the charge. The UK Human Trafficking Centre suggested in its 2012 baseline survey that more than half of all trafficked victims were not referred to the relevant authorities for assessment, so how will we know who they are?
Specifically on domestic violence, what will happen to women who are trying to escape a violent relationship and who, in fleeing the home, are left without any evidence of their entitlement and no information on their immigration status? They may be UK citizens or have indefinite leave to remain but do not have the documentation. They have fled their home because of violence and to protect themselves and their children. Women who flee a violent partner often do so at the time of the most extreme circumstances that they can face. They will not have time to pack up their belongings, hunt for their passport, pack it into their bag, fold up their documents and bring those out with them. They are going to flee the home to protect themselves and their children so when they present for housing they will, if they are fortunate, be placed in a hostel or refuge. If I am correct, the Government are quite rightly exempting that. However, others will just run and, having run, will try to find suitable accommodation.
With the financial difficulties being faced by women’s aid groups across the country—I declare an interest in that I am patron of Basildon Women’s Aid—supply cannot always meet demand. What do the Government expect these women to do? How will they find accommodation? Will a sympathetic landlord be forced to turn them away if they do not have their documents and, if they are pregnant, where are they going to give birth if they have been turned away by a landlord? Where will their home be? A number of questions are being asked today, and I think that there will be many more from other noble Lords who have amendments in this group, about the implications of Clauses 33 and 34 for pregnant women and victims of domestic violence.
I have spoken to the Minister about this already, so he is aware of my concerns. However, we need far greater clarity about what is in the scope of the Bill and what has been just government rhetoric or other issues which the Government pretend they will take later. What is going to happen and how will it work in practice? I would find it quite helpful if the Minister could help me understand the position of someone who is here legally but who has not paid the visa surcharge—because they are here at present and that surcharge has not come in—and does not have permanent or indefinite leave to remain. What is their position regarding healthcare? I am assuming that transitional arrangements will make provision for that but I am not clear on how that will work in practice. If the Minister can shed any light on that, it would be extremely helpful.
Baroness Cumberlege (Con)
My Lords, I have two amendments in this group—Amendments 59 and 63. I declare my interests, which are in the Lords’ register.
We received a very interesting letter from my noble friend Lord Howe over the weekend. His letter explains that Clauses 33 and 34 are designed to break, or perhaps put a stop to, the activity of health tourism. It is absolutely right that we should do that. Having read his letter, I understand that estimates suggest that between £70 million and £300 million of costs—it seems to be rather a large gap—are attributed to people who deliberately travel to England to get free healthcare because their treatments are so expensive in their country of origin. In no way should we entertain health tourism; it should be detected and the individuals suitably charged. The NHS, as we know, is enormously generous and supported by us all through our taxes. The whole purpose is that we should contribute, through our taxes, to the well-being of our own country’s health.
I have had a long-time interest in maternity services. As the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, indicated in introducing his proposed new pregnancy and maternity clause, there really are few things more important to a woman than bringing a new life into the world. It is a journey of dramatic physical, psychological and social change; of becoming a mother, of redefining family relationships and in taking on the long-term responsibility of caring for and cherishing a newborn child. If the needs of child-bearing women and their babies are ignored, then not only are the physical, social and psychological long-term effects damaging to those concerned but the economic implications for the country are considerable.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 59, which stands in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, and to Amendment 60, which stands in my name. I have added my name to Amendment 59. I also strongly support Amendment 63, which stands in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, and other noble Lords. I would have added my name to it, but another Lord Patel—the noble Lord, Lord Patel of Bradford—beat me to it. I think the priorities were wrong there, but never mind. It just shows that Amendment 63 has wide, cross-party support in the House.
I declare my interests. I am on the specialist register of the General Medical Council as an obstetrician. I also hold the position of professor of obstetrics at the University of Dundee. The noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, gave a long list of reasons why pregnant women should be seen early in pregnancy, and I could add another 500 or more, but I do not want to recite a textbook of obstetrics and antenatal care. It is important that every pregnant woman is seen as early as possible during pregnancy if we are to prevent problems occurring later in pregnancy for her and her child’s well-being. It is important that she is seen early so that problems that are occurring are identified early and can be treated early to prevent serious complications developing later. As the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, said, in maternal mortality reports, it is the women who are seen late in pregnancy who develop the most complications and even die. Hence anything we do that will prohibit or prevent women from being seen early in their pregnancy will be wrong.
As for health tourism, the visitors are not part of this levy or these charges. It is likely that the so-called childbirth tourism occurring here, often referred to by some hospitals as the “Lagos shuttle”, is about visitors and not those seeking to enter this country on different visas. I therefore hope that the Minister will look again at why pregnant women are included in the levy and charges.
My Amendment 60 includes not only persons who are pregnant but also children. To clarify, I included children under 18 because, currently, children under 18 in this country are exempt from NHS charges. Of course, I realise that, in terms of risk, children under five years old are different from children aged five to 12 or, for that matter, 12 to 18. As no other noble Lord is likely to speak about children, although the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, referred to them briefly, I intend to speak at length only to demonstrate how important children are and what harm the levy, or imposing charges on children, could possibly do.
My amendment would exempt children from the migrant health levy when they apply or are included as dependants in an application for leave to enter or remain. The levy is to apply generally to visa applicants who are students, workers or families, but not visitors. Currently, it is intended that payment of the levy will provide the applicant with free access to all NHS services for the duration of his or her visa. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said, we need clarification about whether the levy means that they will get all NHS services free of charge. There is a lot of confusion about that. For instance, Clause 33(4) makes it clear that there is no guarantee that restrictions on access to particular services will not be introduced. Clause 33(3)(e) includes a power for the Secretary of State to make exemptions from the levy. However, it is not clear in the Bill what the consequence of such an exemption would be. Without more, it appears that a charge would be made where a child exempted from the levy needed to access NHS services, save for any services which regulations may exempt from charging.
As to which services charges will apply, the intention is that this will include primary and secondary care services, including accident and emergency services. GP consultations will be free, although it is unclear whether any treatment that may be delivered by or via the GP will be free. Treatment for specified communicable diseases and sexually transmitted infections will be available. It is yet to be decided whether any, or how many, mental health services will remain free. There is a great deal of doubt.
The Department of Health response to last year’s consultation on migrants’ access to NHS services recorded,
“widespread support for exempting all children, not just those in local authority care, from charging”.
However, the Government then concluded:
“We do not intend to establish an exemption for children as we believe this poses a significant risk of abuse by visitors seeking treatment for children … Vulnerable children, such as victims of trafficking, those seeking asylum, and migrant children in local authority care currently receive free healthcare and will continue to do so. We will listen to arguments about how best to cover other vulnerable children who might otherwise be denied treatment”.
Can we know what this group of “other vulnerable children” will be? To me, all children of a certain age are vulnerable.
Baroness Barker (LD)
Clause 33 enables the Government to introduce a health levy. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said that her Benches support it in principle; on our Benches, we support it as the least worst of a number of options, none of which we particularly favour. We think that a health levy is preferable to requiring people who come to this country to take out forms of private health insurance that do not meet their needs and are considerably more expensive. However, having said that a health levy may be one way of generating income for the NHS that we can support, like other Peers we have considerable reservations about what the effect will be in practice—and, in particular, what the deterrent effect will be on people who require health services. We will go on in later groups of amendments to discuss that in greater detail, but in this group noble Lords have focused first and foremost, perhaps not surprisingly, on pregnant women and children.
The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, in his introduction was almost biblical in his references to our consideration for expectant mothers and children. I am not as spiritual as he is—I am much more practical. I would say that one of the haunting images of last year was that of the asylum seeker who drowned in the boat off Lampedusa in southern Italy, who was found to be giving birth at the time. When I listen to people talking about maternity and health tourism, time and again I go back to that woman and what must have been going through her mind, and what her life must have been like, to be pregnant and in that position. That is just my disposition towards our general discussion.
The noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, introduced her amendment in her characteristically thoughtful and well researched way. She, too, referred to the letter of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, of 6 March, in which he explained the thinking behind this Bill from the point of view of the Department of Health. I, too, wanted to focus noble Lords’ attention on the statement that he made. He said that there was “widespread evidence” and,
“a cost of between £70 million and £300 million from people who deliberately travel to England to get free NHS treatment—so-called ‘health tourists’”,
of which those seeking maternity treatment were most prominent. There is some difference between £70 million and £300 million. My first question to the Minister is: can he explain the range? Even if he can, £300 million in terms of the overall NHS budget is minuscule. Consequently, when we are doing our job in this House as we should, which is to consider not just the immediate cost but the overall impact of a charge, we have to do it in recognition of that fact.
I should like the Minister to explain exactly how the Department of Health arrived at that estimate, particularly as the small charity, Médecins du Monde—Doctors of the World—conducted research across the European Union and discovered that there is no higher rate of migration to this country under our current system of charges than to places such as Germany. I simply repeat, as I did at Second Reading, that I have no problem with our making a fundamental change to our health policy provided that we do so on the basis of proper evidence and not the cynical opinion of newspapers.
Amendment 64A in this group stands in my name. Other amendments in the group, which I support, refer to pregnant women. Mine refers to women who are pregnant or require postnatal treatment. We afford postnatal services to those who are ordinarily resident. We do so routinely for women who do not have problems, who also have access to health visitors to ensure that they and their children are functioning well in the first few weeks of the children’s lives. We afford these services to women who have problems which may not be very significant but which we know are important in the development of their children—for example, women who are having trouble breastfeeding or women who are suffering from postnatal depression. We also extend treatment to women who have suffered traumatic deliveries and need surgery following deliveries that have not gone well. That is what we do for our own people because it is the right and decent thing to do. I should like to think that in future, no matter who a woman is or what her financial status is, she, too, will be afforded such treatment.
Finally, I thoroughly support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, which mentions children. I pay my taxes to live in a country where the first question that a doctor asks concerns what is wrong with a child and what treatment they need, not who their parents are. Our wish is to retain that as far as we possibly can.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, I support the amendment on domestic violence in the name of my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon. She has made the case for it, so I will not repeat that, other than to point out that this amendment is totally consistent with the Government’s own action plan on domestic violence and builds on the destitute domestic violence concession. It is a very modest amendment, which would simply guarantee a period of safety, with access to services and benefits, after the breakdown of a relationship because of domestic violence. I hope I am not being naive when I say that I am confident that the Government will support this amendment, given that it is so consistent with their own policy.
I also support Amendment 60, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Patel. I am very glad that he introduced an amendment on children to remind us of the potential effects on children of some of these changes. I draw noble Lords’ attention to what the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I am a member, had to say on this matter. It referred to the concerns that,
“arise about the possible impact on children of the provisions in the Bill which extend charging for NHS services … Extending charging to migrants not previously charged for accessing health services, and extending the range of services for which charges apply, are likely to have a deterrent effect on accessing health care, which in turn is likely to have a particularly detrimental effect on the children of such migrants”.
I will not go into the full detail but our recommendation was that to meet these concerns,
“about the impact of extended charging for health services on children’s health, we recommend that new guidance be issued specifically on the s.11 Children Act duty”,
which applies to the NHS,
“explaining to front-line decision-makers in the health sector exactly how that duty applies in the context of extended charging for NHS services”.
I should therefore be grateful if the Minister would say what the Government’s response is to that.
Baroness Tonge (Ind LD)
My Lords, I support all these amendments—in particular, Amendment 63, to which I have added my name. Unfortunately, due to circumstances, I was not able to be present at Second Reading, but I support these amendments because I worked in the health service for more than 30 years, particularly in women’s health services, implementing, supplying and managing those services. My late husband worked in the health service for more than 40 years.
The first point that I would like to make from that experience and that of many colleagues with whom I am still in touch concerns health tourism. It really is most extraordinary that this term is bandied around to scare people that the health service is being misused by countless numbers of people who really should not be here. It is the same old thing that appeals to Daily Mail readers: these people should not be here and they must not access our facilities. Yet, in all that time neither I nor my husband ever came across health tourism and nor have I ever heard colleagues talk about it. I reinforce what the noble Baronesses, Lady Barker and Lady Lister, said: the letter from the noble Earl, Lord Howe, was extremely woolly in that department. I think that the so-called evidence for this is really just anecdotal.
Perhaps I may say a few words about the noble Earl, Lord Howe. He writes a wonderful letter and he is the most emollient man. I think that if I were on my deathbed and the noble Earl appeared, I would rise and feel well again. He has that ability. He is in the wrong profession—he really should be out there tending the sick because he makes us feel happy and cured. However, being a cynic, I do not believe all that he says, and I hope that sometimes he does not believe it either.
So let us sit back and think really hard about whether health tourism exists. In any case, if, through some medical sleuth, we identified that there were health tourists, would the problem be large enough to make a difference? Would it really bring in that much more money to the health service?
In passing, my late husband was at St Thomas’s Hospital, which is alleged to have experienced the “Lagos shuttle” in relation to maternity care. St Thomas’s and the Royal College of Midwives have denied this, so I question whether this should be used in any way as evidence for charging pregnant women if they want to come to this country as migrants.
My second general point is that one of the reasons why I support Amendment 63 is because it points out awfully well how terribly difficult it will be to make any of the charges. How will that be done? I have been out of the health service for quite a while and I wonder who will implement this? If a pregnant woman says, “I’m pregnant and need antenatal care”, presumably a layer of bureaucrats will have checked her bit of paper. However, what if she does not have a bit of paper, forgot to get it, has lost it or does not speak English? She may have high blood pressure or be carrying twins—we will not go into all the medical obstetric possibilities that the noble Lord, Lord Patel, mentioned. If so, will we really deny the woman care? Doctors and nurses go into their profession because, I hope, they possess a certain amount of compassion, and want to help people. We have to ask patients myriad questions before we even start asking medical questions about their health. Are we to add another layer of questioning? How will we have time to do it? We do not have enough doctors and nurses. They are all overworked, so how will we implement this? Again, will it be financially worth it to create all that distress and bureaucracy?
I know that I have made general points but I say finally that I want to support all noble Lords who have pointed out that if we fail to give proper antenatal care to a pregnant woman we are failing her and her future health, and we are failing the baby or babies she is carrying and their future health. That is not only a double human tragedy but it is denying them their human rights. It is also setting up far more work and expense for the health service in the future if it is not dealt with properly. I beg the Minister to reflect on this between now and Report and to withdraw this awful provision.
Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB)
My Lords, this list of important amendments deals with the health of some very vulnerable people. I have put my name to Amendment 65, but several deal with exemption of payment for pregnant women if they are unable to pay. I do not know which of the amendments is most appropriate but I hope that the Minister will accept the spirit behind the amendments and bring forward an acceptable amendment on Report.
Charges at the point of care create risks that women will not attend care, will attend late in their pregnancy or will be denied access to care because of inability to pay. This can prevent midwives identifying and treating health conditions early in pregnancy which, in turn, can lead to significantly worse health outcomes for vulnerable, migrant women. NICE has acknowledged this and recommended that care providers take additional measures to promote early engagement with maternity services. FGM reversal is best undertaken prior to 20 weeks of pregnancy. Charges at this point of care can result in higher costs later to the NHS. Pregnant women who are HIV positive need treatment so that their babies are born free of HIV. They should not be put off seeking care. Delayed or no antenatal care can lead to complex interventions at a later date. For example, identifying and treating urinary tract infections during standard antenatal care prevents a woman developing a kidney infection that can result in premature birth which can be very expensive to the NHS. I hope that the Minister will do his very best to agree to some of our points.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)
My Lords, I have listened carefully to the debate and support the general thrust of all the amendments. However, like the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, I am not clear which of the amendments particularly meets the bill. I hope the Government will indicate not only whether they are receptive to the general thrust but which amendments are particularly inadequate. I hope the Minister will address the question posed by the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, of what exactly is meant by the phrase “health tourism”. What is the evidence that it exists?
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
My Lords, this has been an important debate and I declare all my health interests. In speaking briefly, I will not reiterate the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, and my noble friend Lord Patel but they are incredibly important.
When the Minister comes to reply, perhaps he will give the figures in respect of the actual cost of antenatal care versus the actual cost of complications. Let us not forget that a massive haemorrhage in labour or a massive problem with obstructive labour will cost a great deal of money in emergency treatment when, if they had been picked up much earlier with a simple ultrasound examination, the problems could have been avoided. Will the Minister give the costs and the research evidence behind the reason for the Government not exempting pregnancy and children? Will he say what discussions the Government have had with the royal medical colleges and the Royal College of Midwives, in particular, over the background to this measure and its implementation? For doctors, nurses and midwives trying to implement it on the ground it will be a nightmare.
What do the Government intend to do to monitor the effects of the measure—in other words, how will they audit it—when and if they proceed to implement the Bill as it is currently drafted? Will that audit include a cost of the complications that would have been avoided in the event that pregnant women had had appropriate antenatal care?
There is a great deal of evidence behind this. From all the amendments that have been tabled today it seems evident that a consolidated and focused amendment will be brought back on Report. Like others who have spoken, I believe it would be most sensible for the Government to listen today and take the evidence on board, rather than push the House to determine its view.
Lord Avebury (LD)
My Lords, I should like to add a few words to what my noble friend Lady Barker has already said about Amendment 64A which, unlike some of the other amendments in the group, covers postnatal as well as prenatal treatment.
We had a meeting with representatives of the Royal College of Midwives, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, and Maternity Action on 27 January and we have taken note of the strong arguments for exempting these patients from charging, as I hope the Minister will have done by the end of this debate. As has been said repeatedly, there is no official estimate of the net cost to the NHS of non-EEA short-term migrants needing maternity treatment once those exempt from charging are removed from the equation. Neither in the Government’s briefing nor in any other source have I been able to find a reliable estimate of the volume of alleged maternity tourism. However, as has been said, anecdotal evidence exists, of which the Minister’s letter is an example.
This all seems to have arisen from an assertion by Sky News that 300 women had been stopped at Gatwick but then had to be admitted because they were assessed as being more than 36 weeks pregnant and therefore unable to travel back to their countries of origin. This information was said to have come from a government report, but no title or reference was given. The noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, quoted the letter from the noble Earl, Lord Howe, giving a wide range of estimates of the volume of health tourism generally but not maternity tourism in particular. All it had to say on that subject was that maternity tourism formed a large proportion of the total value of health tourism. Surely the answer to that problem is for the Government to stipulate that airlines flying pregnant women to UK destinations should be required to obtain certificates of the length of pregnancy from doctors they can trust, and for carriers that bring women who are more than 36 weeks pregnant to the UK to be subject to fines. That should not be too difficult because the alleged maternity tourists are said to come from a limited number of destinations. When my noble friend the Minister comes to reply, I would like him to make some comments about that idea.
At the other end of the spectrum from the Sky News report was an article about a woman whose case was reported in the Guardian. She had been living in the UK as the wife of a British citizen for seven years, but for some reason not explained in the article had evidently not obtained indefinite leave to remain. Having paid Lewisham Hospital £5,000 for maternity services in regard to care during and after her first child’s birth, she was terrified of going near the NHS and was expecting to give birth without medical supervision because she and her husband were still paying off the bill for the first child.
My noble friend Lady Tonge asked about the denial of treatment for women who present themselves as maternity patients but cannot satisfy the health authorities that they are legitimately entitled to those services. Surely the answer to that must be that the delivery of the services should come first and the ascertainment of the woman’s right to treatment dealt with afterwards. I cannot imagine that any clinician would say that they would not provide maternity services for a woman in the early stages of pregnancy, and that may be the answer to those who say that complications arising from a variety of serious causes might result from the failure to treat those who are in the early stages of pregnancy. I hope that I am right in saying that this will not happen because of the first duty of clinicians, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, to treat patients who come before them.
Baroness Tonge
Will the noble Lord give way? I appreciate his point, but if someone gives a patient the benefit of the doubt for antenatal care and it then turns out that they do not have an entitlement to treatment, do they then say that the patient is not going to get any more antenatal care?
Lord Avebury
My Lords, it has been the case in the past that people who receive services to which they were not entitled incur a debt. I believe that something like two-thirds of the charges levied on these people lie on the table because they cannot be recovered.
Baroness Tonge
As I am sure my noble friend is aware, pregnancy goes on for nine months. It is not a short intervention which is treated and the patient then goes away; it is an ongoing thing that includes postnatal care and goes on for a long time, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, pointed out. This is a long-term treatment and it is important that it should be so. Perish the thought that treatment is cut off mid way.
Lord Avebury
No, what I was saying is that I hope that the treatment would be given irrespective of the woman’s entitlement while checks are being made to see whether she is a valid patient of the NHS or is someone who should incur the charges. However, if the charges do fall on the woman, I hope that they will simply lie on the table, as obviously a substantial proportion of the costs of treatment of migrants has done in the past. From the official figures given by the Department of Health, I think it was two-thirds of the charges incurred—not just by pregnant women but by persons who were not entitled to treatment presenting themselves to the NHS. In no case that I have heard of were patients denied treatment, but the charges piled up and the debt was left there on the table. I do not know what the mechanisms for recovery will be under this system, and perhaps the Minister will deal with that point in his reply.
I assume, and want confirmation, that no woman would ever be denied treatment, but if it was ascertained subsequently that she was not entitled to it, the debt would be recorded somewhere. Whatever steps the NHS might take to recover it would be fair enough, but if it could not be recovered, like so many other debts which have been incurred by migrants generally in the past, would it be written off to the NHS? I would like reassurance from the Minister on that point.
Undocumented migrants such as overstayers and failed asylum seekers, of whom there are estimated to be half a million, are unlikely to be able to pay for maternity or indeed any other medical services. If such people work, they are on or below the minimum wage and are now likely to become unemployed with the tightening up of checks by employers on their right to work. Health authorities may invoice patients from this group, but can the Minister say what proportion of the debt is recovered and whether there is anything in this clause, or indeed in the Bill as a whole, that will make it easier to collect the money? Will they be able to transfer the debts at a discount to a debt collector, and will they be any better off than they would have been in the past before this clause was enacted?
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, in listening to my noble friend Lord Patel’s concerns, which I share very strongly, about children and the charging of children, it occurred to me that there might also be an issue about the immunisation of children. If significant numbers of children do not get immunised, that might pose a threat. I would appreciate the Minister addressing that question in his reply.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Taylor of Holbeach) (Con)
My Lords, this has been a very full discussion about all aspects of healthcare and healthcare charging, some of which lie within the provisions of the Bill and some of which lie way beyond it and are actually part of the Department of Health’s consultation. I guess there are two ways of dealing with this debate: I can give either the short answer or the long answer. I have chosen to give the long answer—I hope that noble Lords will indulge me—in the hope that I will be able to disabuse them of some of their anxieties and reassure them. I am very mindful of the kind words from the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, but I am also slightly anxious as a result of the description of my noble friend Lord Howe. I am equally concerned to try to be as upfront as I can be about what the Bill provides for and to reinforce my noble friend’s letter, which noble Lords will have received, which seeks to place measures in this Bill in the context of wider health service charging.
Perhaps it would be helpful to provide a brief reminder of the intentions behind Clauses 33 and 34. I will refer to my noble friend Lord Howe’s letter because it sets out the context for these provisions, which is the Department of Health’s wider programme of work on migrant access and financial contributions to the NHS. Likewise, I want to reassure noble Lords that, first and foremost, the NHS is, and will remain, free at the point of delivery for permanent residents. But it is a national service, not an international health service. We believe that migrants should have a form of access to the NHS that is commensurate with their immigration status. That is our policy position.
Baroness Masham of Ilton
Does the Minister agree that they should be working together in maternity cases? It is health but it is immigration as well.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I hope that I will be able to go on and talk about these matters when I address the specific amendments. I hope that when I have concluded my remarks, the noble Baroness will feel that I have indeed satisfied her in that respect. I understand the vulnerability of pregnant women and the care that is needed to ensure that both mother and child have healthy prospects.
The health surcharge is designed to ensure that legal migrants make a fair contribution to the NHS, commensurate with their immigration status. We intend for it to be applied fairly and without unintended consequences. As I have just said to the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, pregnant women should not be adversely affected—I listened with great care to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and to subsequent speeches on this subject. However, it is important to consider the safeguards already provided in the Bill.
In respect of the provisions relating to landlords, there are exclusions from the restrictions in accessing accommodation at Schedule 3 to the Bill to protect the vulnerable. Local or housing authorities providing accommodation in discharging a statutory duty—for example, under national assistance or children’s legislation—are not subject to these restrictions.
Asylum seekers and failed asylum seekers who face recognised barriers to return will be authorised to rent property by the Home Office, and the department will continue to support destitute applicants. Accommodation for vulnerable individuals, such as hostels for the homeless and refuges for victims of violence, will also be exempt from the checking requirements—I mention these because the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, rightly expressed concern about the vulnerable and I shall address her amendments later.
We need to consider the checks that would be required by some of the amendments. These would be intrusive; indeed, it would be objectionable to ask all temporary female migrants of childbearing age if they were pregnant and to verify that information. How could the Home Office or a service provider establish that an individual was indeed pregnant rather than merely seeking to circumvent the rules? Rather than a simple check of documentation, which is what the Bill provides for, inquiries would need to be directed to the individual’s health provider. We must also consider the unintended distress that such a practice could cause. What if a woman was reluctant to reveal a pregnancy? What if she suffered a miscarriage while her visa or other applications were being considered? She would no longer be exempt; she would need to tell us of her loss at a time of great distress. The more one looks into the detail of this and the practical application of the policy, the more the intrusive nature of these amendments becomes clear.
Some of the amendments would allow pregnant women who were illegal migrants to rent accommodation, open bank accounts and hold driving licences. As such, they would help them establish a life in the UK. However, they would also create a dangerous loophole through which illegal migrant women might be encouraged or pressurised into becoming pregnant so that they could rent accommodation or open a bank account for themselves or their family members. We surely cannot introduce legislation that places women at risk of such exploitation.
Before turning to the particular amendments, I shall address some of the questions that have been asked. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, asked me about the health consultation. The Bill provides that certain expensive treatments could be charged for, even though persons have paid the surcharge—it is important to have flexibility in the legislation—but when the Act is initially implemented it is our clear policy intention that there will be no further charges for treatments where people have paid the surcharge. They will be treated as if they are permanent residents. The Bill’s provisions are therefore wider than the application of the legislation
The noble Baroness also asked me about the transitional arrangements. There are no transitional arrangements to the extent that anybody who is already here under existing immigration laws permitting them a period of stay greater than six months will not to have to pay the surcharge. The payment will be required only of people who are making a new application or new applicants. It should be noted that if somebody is extending their leave by making a fresh application the surcharge will become due. There is no question of trying to recover the surcharge from people who already have a right to be in this country for more than six months.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
I apologise for interrupting the Minister, and I am grateful for his response to my queries. I am still slightly confused on the issue of pregnant women. I think that he said that the Bill allows for such charges but there is no intention to make them. If I have that wrong, perhaps he could clarify it for me. The only reason it has been flagged up is that the public health consultation mentioned additional charges. I want to be absolutely clear that if a woman has paid the surcharge, there is no additional charge to be made. I may have misunderstood, but what he said seems slightly contradictory.
The other point is on transitional arrangements. If someone is already here legally, my question is about the practicality and workability of the measures. How will we be able to distinguish between someone who has paid the surcharge but is here illegally and someone who is here legally but has not paid the surcharge?
Lord Patel
If the Minister will allow me, before he answers the noble Baroness, can I make something clear? We keep confusing surcharge with levy. Let us talk about the levy that will be imposed on people coming here who are not visitors. Once that levy has been paid, it will allow them to access all health services. Is that quite clear?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
Yes, that is exactly right. They will have the same access to health services as is available to a permanent resident. That is the whole purpose. It is administratively a tidy arrangement; it is straightforward and easy to police; and people will be paying it at the same time as they apply for their visa. Their visa application will show that they have those rights, so if anyone seeks to charge such a person, they will not be chargeable because they will have a clear right to free healthcare, just as the noble Lord and I would.
It is really important to emphasise that point, because the whole point of having the levy, the charge or whatever we call it, is to provide a contribution from people who stay here and may impose some cost on the health service but to avoid asking them for payments for services provided or to take out an insurance policy before they come here to cover any chance that there will be health costs. It will be an asset to the health service in the sense that it will provide money to support the health service. It also regularises the position of the individuals involved. I hope that that satisfies the noble Lord.
Lord Patel
It does, but I wonder whether this is new policy thinking, because much in the Bill, particularly in this part, implies that the Government want to be able to impose charges for other things.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I do not think so. I think that the Bill’s provisions are purely about health service charging for those who come here for a fixed term of six months or more and who are not here as visitors. It clearly differentiates between those who are here legally and with proper documentation and those who are illegal, so it will make it more difficult for those people who are here illegally to avoid the implication of their illegal presence here in the United Kingdom. We should remember that most people who are here illegally are overstayers; they are not people who have come in but people who should have gone home. That is one thrust behind the legislation.
Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)
May I press the Minister just one step further, since this is quite a complex area? I think I am right that, at present, students count as being ordinarily resident as distinct from permanently resident. In future, because the ordinarily resident concept will broadly disappear, they will be regarded as permanent residents only if they put in the time to become, eventually, citizens in that sense. Many students, particularly those who are post-doctorate, continue to work in some area associated with what they are doing. For example, many post-docs work on research and are paid for it. If those students then pay taxes and national insurance on those earnings which they receive, but which are often well below what the market rate would be for their level of qualifications, am I right in thinking that they would not have access to free health treatment unless they had paid the surcharge at the moment when they got the visa?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
They will have access currently, as the noble Baroness will understand. When they make an application to come here from now on, they will have to pay the health surcharge on top of the visa that they are currently applying for. I hope that I have made that clear. At the same time, it has been suggested from the Box that I ought to make it absolutely clear that the surcharge will be paid when a person applies for a visa and for leave to remain when they are in the UK and extending their leave. I think that was what I said, but the Box obviously thought that it is such an important point that everyone should understand that.
Lord Patel
My Lords, what the Minister said in response to my question is clearly recorded, so we can all read it. As I understood it, I thought he said that once the health surcharge—let us say it is £200—is paid, for the duration of their legitimate stay in this country all health services will be available to them.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
It is a per annum charge, so if they are here for three years and are not a student it will be three times £200. But yes, that is exactly right.
Baroness Williams of Crosby
On this point, I am sorry that we are pursuing the Minister, but can I take this one step further? I was talking specifically about a post-doctoral graduate who might be earning some relatively small sum while he was a post-doctoral graduate. I take it that he would therefore not be exempt from the surcharge as well even though he would be paying both national insurance and taxation, if he was about the taxation threshold, and had paid the surcharge already. That is where the sense of some unfairness in the system arises rather strongly.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I suppose that at any boundary point, there are bound to be these sorts of situations occurring. The post-doctoral leave to remain would be in addition, perhaps, to a university degree. There would be an additional application, so indeed it would be allowable because they would not be permanently resident here in the UK. That is a correct analysis of the situation and the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, is absolutely right in pointing that out.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, I hesitate to add to the interruptions that the Minister has already suffered, but I think I can understand what the noble Lord, Lord Patel, was getting at. Clause 33(4) states:
“In specifying the amount of a charge under subsection (3)(b) the Secretary of State must … have regard to the range of health services that are likely to be available free of charge to persons who have been given immigration permission”.
That implies that not all health services will be available to that person, but the noble Lord has insisted that such persons will be treated on the same basis as a native of this country in accessing the health service. Why do we need subsection (4), which implies that there are other services which the health service provides that are not covered by the surcharge?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I thought that I had made that clear in answer to an earlier question, and I am just trying to find my notes on that matter. When the Bill is initially implemented, it is our clear policy intention that there will be no further charges for treatment. The provision in the Bill is there for this particular period, but we will clarify the position on implementation. The policy position is that there will be no further charge. That is not on the face of the Bill, as the noble Lord, Lord Patel, rightly points out, but I am giving him the policy position from the Dispatch Box. I hope that that reassures him and my noble friend on that point.
Baroness Tonge
Would the Minister be patient one more time? I thank him very much for giving way. Unless the granting of a visa is made dependent on paying the health surcharge, will poor migrants—let us assume that a lot of people wanting to come to this country are coming for a better life and are very strapped for cash—not waive the health charge, or whatever we like to call it, and assume that because they are healthy when they apply for their visa they will never need medical treatment? Is there not a danger that we are forcing people into a situation where they will not be able to receive any medical treatment at all because they will be too poor?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I have to say that we are not looking to put people in that situation. Indeed, one would hope—this is the reason for the provision—that if people are here for a period of time, they have got cover for their healthcare. That is the whole point of the charge in the first place. If people come as temporary visitors then that is a slightly different position, but they make that choice. They make the choice to come here, and they carry the responsibility to do so.
Perhaps I may turn to some of the amendments. It is good that we have had this chance to talk about the principles behind the charging and I hope that it has clarified the position to some degree. However, there are points here that I think I need to clear up. The first is that the restrictions to services set out in Part 3 are designed to protect our services from illegal immigrants—people who are remaining here outside the law. Many of these provisions will have no impact at all on pregnant women who are in the UK lawfully. The Government are committed to ensuring that the new restrictions and charges in Part 3 are appropriately targeted and do not impose a disproportionate burden on either service providers or migrants.
I should like to address some other points regarding Amendments 59, 60, 63, 64A and 65, which seek to exempt pregnant women from the health surcharge or the NHS treatment charges. I fear that there has been a misunderstanding about the purpose of the surcharge and the manner in which it will operate. As I say, the surcharge will be paid by legal, temporary migrants who come to the UK for more than six months. Our policy intention is that those who pay the surcharge, including pregnant women, will not be subject to most other NHS treatment charges. That will include both antenatal and postnatal care. They will be charged only for services that a UK resident might also be expected to pay for.
Amendment 60 also seeks to exempt children under the age of 18 from the surcharge. This would undermine the general principle that temporary migrants should contribute to the NHS, commensurate with their immigration status. Children are as likely to need NHS care as anyone else. It is therefore reasonable to expect parents—and it would be parents—to make this contribution on behalf of their child.
We have seen the headlines about health tourism. I am afraid that Amendments 63 and 65 would exacerbate the problem of maternity tourism. They would allow any pregnant woman to use the NHS free of charge. The NHS is not equipped to supply free maternity services for the rest of the world, and I do not think that that is an unreasonable thing for a government Minister to say.
Baroness Cumberlege
Amendment 63, which I tabled, proposes four new subsections. Proposed new subsection (1A) states:
“Notwithstanding subsection (1), any pregnant woman shall be treated as ordinarily resident”,
and proposed new subsection (1B) states:
“However, subsection (1A) shall not apply where there is evidence the woman has entered the UK for the purpose of obtaining healthcare”.
I think that is quite clear. I am saying that people who apply here simply for the purpose of obtaining healthcare should normally have to pay. Perhaps the Minister will clarify that. I am still very concerned about the three examples I gave. Will he address them? The first is a woman who came in with her husband and the relationship has broken down. Is she now exempt from these charges? The second example is a woman who is destitute and living on the streets. If she becomes pregnant as a result of a sexual assault, is she exempt? The third is a woman who is married to a British man and has submitted an immigration application to the Home Office who becomes pregnant and gives birth while the application is being assessed. Is she to be charged? It is not just maternity services; it is the other services being introduced in this Bill, such as prescriptions, dental care and A&E.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
My noble friend is very prescient because I was just about to turn to Amendment 63. It is exceptionally difficult to prove that a migrant had a prior intention to use the NHS. Pregnant migrants would simply say that they fully intended to return home for the birth of their child. It would be difficult, if not impossible, for us to prove otherwise if they were a temporary migrant. This amendment would require GPs and hospital staff to act as immigration officers, and that is exactly what we are trying to avoid in setting this charge.
I have an answer here for my noble friend on victims of sexual assault. I have been speaking for 30 minutes, which is way beyond the conventions of the House, in answering these amendments. I am quite prepared to go on if noble Lords are prepared to do so. Other noble Lords are waiting to hear the Statement, and I have to crave their indulgence. If I skip any points, I will try to sweep them up by writing to all noble Lords who have spoken on this group of amendments, but there are an awful lot of points. I am literally but halfway through my speaking notes.
My noble friend asked about the operation of NHS charging regulations. Urgent treatment will always be provided no matter what the circumstances, and the Department of Health will still have the power to exempt treatments from charges. It is considering what exemptions for vulnerable groups are appropriate as part of its reform programme; there is no provision in the Bill.
My noble friend also asked whether women who have outstanding NHS debts will receive care. Women who pay the surcharge will not incur NHS debts. Where illegal immigrants or visitors incur debts, they will still receive treatment where it is immediately necessary or urgent. Their NHS debt for this treatment exceeding £1,000 will be taken into account by the Home Office when determining future immigration applications.
I reassure my noble friend Lady Tonge and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, that pregnant women in need of NHS care will receive it. Our intention is that surcharge payers will receive this care free of charge, at a fraction of the real cost of maternity services. Those who do not pay the surcharge, such as tourists and illegal migrants, who might otherwise be charged for maternity care, are also protected. Guidance to the NHS is explicit that, in order to protect the lives of both mother and unborn child, all maternity care, including routine antenatal care, must be provided to all women without delay caused by charging issues. I hope that I have made that clear in all the answers that I have given: the health of mother and child is paramount, regardless of the charging regime or the status of the mother.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
I am sorry to intervene on the noble Lord; I know that noble Lords are anxious to get on to the next debate. The answer the Minister gave me was not the answer to the question that I asked. I asked about those who have leave to remain in this country and are here legally—they could be UK citizens—but, having fled the domestic home where they have been subjected to violence, do not have the documents to show to a landlord and so cannot prove their status. How does the noble Lord intend for that matter to be dealt with, given the problems that it will cause to women fleeing domestic violence?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
My Lords, I remember that the noble Baroness painted this scenario and I understood it well enough; I am sorry if I missed that point in picking up another. There are exceptions for refuge accommodation and local authority-provided housing. After all, a broad range of individuals are in this situation. Social services will be able to help them with long-term housing needs and asylum seekers will also be authorised to rent. If I have not satisfied the noble Baroness, I do not want to mislead her or the House by giving her an off-the-cuff response which is beyond my brief at the minute. I will write to her, and copy in everyone, on this matter.
I am looking through these notes, and see that I have satisfied a number of questions—such as those raised by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, on children—in the way in which I have answered the broader matters. However, I recognise, too, that I may not have covered all the points made by noble Lords, but I am very mindful of the time. If noble Lords will forgive me, I will ask the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, to withdraw his amendment. I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate, which is by way of a warm-up, I suspect, for further adventures in these fields with the amendments that are yet to come.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I thank the Minister for choosing to give the lengthy reply rather than the short one. This is clearly a matter of great concern to many of us, so I am most grateful to him for taking the time to answer our points as carefully as he could. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
European Council
(10 years, 1 month ago)
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Hill of Oareford) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House I will now repeat a Statement made by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister in another place. The Statement is as follows.
“With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a Statement on last week’s emergency European Council.
What has happened to the Ukraine is completely indefensible. Its territorial integrity has been violated, and the aspirations of its people to chart their own future are being frustrated. This European Council sent a clear and united message to Russia that its actions are a flagrant breach of international law and will incur consequences.
We agreed on a three-phased approach to stand up to this aggression and uphold international law: first, some immediate steps to respond to what Russia has done; second, urgent work on a set of measures that will follow if Russia refuses to enter dialogue with the Ukrainian Government; and third, that there should be a set of further, far-reaching consequences should Russia take further steps to destabilise the situation in Ukraine.
Let me say a word on each of these steps. First, as a response to what Russia has already done, we agreed on some immediate steps. We have suspended preparations for the G8 in Sochi indefinitely. As I told the House last week, my view is that it would be completely wrong for a G8 summit to go ahead at all under current circumstances.
We decided to stop work on a comprehensive new agreement on relations between Russia and the European Union, and we immediately suspended the talks that were under way on a more liberal visa regime in the Schengen area—the thing that Russian Ministers and business delegations have pushed for more than anything else.
Here in Britain, I have ordered an urgent review of all government business with Russia. We have already announced that no Ministers or members of the Royal Family will visit the Sochi Paralympics. Many other planned ministerial-level contacts will be cancelled in current circumstances.
All bilateral military co-operation is under review, with the presumption that we will suspend it, except for work carried out to fulfil international treaty obligations, such as European arms control inspections. I have ordered a review of licences for arms exports to Russia. It is hard to see how anything that could be used in Ukraine could be justified. However, as with other measures, it is best if possible to take these decisions in concert with our European allies.
There has been intense work to persuade Russia to come to the negotiating table with the Government of Ukraine and to discuss its stated concerns face to face. The idea of such a contact group that included other countries and organisations was one I first proposed to the Polish Prime Minister back in January.
The Council agreed that it was essential for such talks to start within the next few days and for them to deliver progress quickly. We also agreed that if Russia did not co-operate there would need to be further measures—the so-called second phase—which would need to start rapidly. So at my instigation, the Council tasked the European Commission to begin work on additional measures which could be taken against Russia if these talks do not get going or do not start producing results. Those will include asset freezes and travel bans.
We are working closely with our American, European and other international partners to prepare a list of names, and these sanctions, plus the measures already agreed against Yanukovych and his circle, will be the focus of a meeting here in London tomorrow with key international partners.
There is an urgent need to de-escalate tension in the Crimea. We are all clear that any referendum vote in Crimea this week will be illegal, illegitimate and will not be recognised by the international community. I have to say, in addition, that any campaign would be completely impractical as well as illegal. There is no proper register, no proper campaign, and the territory is covered in troops. It is completely impossible for a proper referendum campaign to be carried out. As I discussed with Chancellor Merkel last night in Hanover, Russia can choose the path of de-escalation by signalling that it understands that the outcome cannot be acted on as legitimate. Chancellor Merkel and I were clear that any attempt by Russia to legitimise an illegal referendum would require us to respond by ratcheting up the pressure further.
Thirdly, and most significantly, we agreed that it was essential to stop Russia taking further unacceptable steps in Ukraine. The Council agreed that, if further steps are taken by Russia to destabilise the Ukraine, there will be additional and far-reaching consequences for the relationship between the Russian Federation on the one hand and the European Union and its member states on the other. The Council conclusions state that these consequences would,
‘include a broad range of economic areas’.
Britain played a leading role in helping to reach this agreement, including through a meeting that I convened with fellow leaders from France, Germany, Italy and Poland on the morning of the Council. Such sanctions would have consequences for many EU member states, including Britain. However, as I argued at the meeting, the costs of not standing up to aggression are far greater. Britain’s own security and prosperity would be at risk if we allow a situation where countries can just flout international rules without incurring consequences.
Finally, we decided to send a political message of support to the Ukrainian Government and people. The Ukrainian Prime Minister spoke at the European Council with great power and force. The Ukrainian people want the freedom to be able to choose their own future and strengthen their ties with Europe, and they want a future free from the awful corruption that they have endured for far too long. At the request of the Ukrainian Prime Minister, we agreed to bring forward the signing of the political part of the EU’s Association Agreement with the Ukraine, and to help Ukraine tackle corruption.
The EU has now frozen the assets of 18 people linked to the former regime, and Britain has deployed a team to Kiev from our National Crime Agency to help the new Ukrainian Government go after ill gotten funds and return them to the Ukrainian people. It is vital that Ukraine proceeds towards free and fair elections, which enable all Ukrainians, including Russian speakers and minorities, to choose their leaders freely. Britain is now providing substantial and immediate technical assistance to Ukraine to support elections and assist with reforms on public financial management, debt management and energy pricing. Ukraine also needs support to stabilise and repair its economy. The EU agreed unilaterally to lower trade tariffs and to work with the International Monetary Fund on a package of financial assistance to the Ukrainian Government.
As I agreed with President Obama during our call this weekend, there is still an opportunity for Russia to resolve this situation diplomatically. It should engage in direct talks with the Ukrainians; return Russian troops to their bases in Crimea; withdraw its support for this illegal and unconstitutional referendum in Crimea; and work with the rest of the international community to support free and fair elections in Ukraine in May. No one should be interested in a tug of war. Ukraine should be able to choose its own future and act as a bridge between Russia and Europe.
Britain’s own future depends on a world where countries obey the rules. In Europe, we have spent the past 70 years working to keep the peace, and we know from history that turning a blind eye when nations are trampled over stores up greater problems for the longer term. We must stand up to aggression, uphold international law, and support the Ukrainian Government and the Ukrainian people, who want the freedom to choose their own future. That is right for Ukraine, right for Europe, and right for Britain”.
My Lords, I commend the Statement to the House.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord the Leader of the House for repeating the Statement made by the Prime Minister in the other place. I join him in expressing deep concern about the situation in Ukraine. Since this matter was discussed last week, we have seen an illegal referendum announced in the Crimea, OSCE observers prevented from crossing into the region by Russian forces for four days running and, yesterday, violence on the streets against anti-Russia demonstrators.
We support the twin-track approach of encouraging dialogue and, at the same time, maximising pressure on the Russian Government. However, no one looking at the unfolding situation on the ground would conclude that this is yet having the desired effect. It is on that basis that we should examine the discussions taking place, the outcome of the EU summit and the steps that should be taken in the days ahead. Of course, getting agreement among the EU 28 is always difficult, particularly when a number of member states are vulnerable to Russian action on issues such as energy. However, as we agreed last week, this is a test of EU resolve and of its commitment to uphold the rule of law, democracy and human rights—values that it prides itself upon as an institution.
I would like to ask the noble Lord the Leader of the House about the Prime Minister’s talks with the German Chancellor. I welcome the proposal for a contact group involving President Putin and the Ukrainian Government. Does the noble Lord agree with me that Russian co-operation in the establishment of this group is an absolutely necessary, though not sufficient, signal of its willingness to resolve the crisis by diplomatic means? I welcome the things that were agreed at the EU summit. These include the unity of the EU in condemning Russia’s actions and the decision to provide support and encouragement to the Ukrainian Government, including €11 billion of aid.
The Prime Minister also made reference to the suspension of both visa talks and a new agreement on EU-Russia relations. These are welcome although they had already been announced on 3 March before the further developments had taken place that I referred to at the start of my remarks. Does the noble Lord therefore accept that the evidence from recent days suggests that these measures alone will be insufficient to get Russia to change course and that further action will therefore be required?
Turning to what more needs to be done, I welcome the European Council’s decision to look at further measures, although the agreed language is weaker than we would have wished in that the communiqué merely committed to “take forward preparatory work”. I welcome what the noble Lord said about asset freezes and travel bans. Will he confirm that there will be a timeframe of days, not weeks, for their implementation, particularly given that the United States is already committed to action on this?
On the EU-Russia summit, unless there is an immediate change of course by the Russian Government, surely at the very least it makes sense to suspend preparations, as has already been done for the G8 summit. Beyond this, we welcome the Prime Minister’s Statement that we need actively to look at other measures. I urge the Government in the days ahead to build support for further measures among our European and other allies to prepare for the eventuality that they may be required. Specifically, if Russia does not change course, will the noble Lord confirm that the Government will consider working with the G7 to suspend Russia from the G8, something that the Prime Minister specifically called for at the start of the crisis in Georgia?
Following the announcement that the UK Government are reviewing every outstanding arms export licence to Russia, will the noble Lord confirm the timescale for the conclusions on this issue? Will he say what scope he believes there is to get an EU-wide agreement on the issue of arms exports? Will he confirm not only that the Government are open to wider economic and trade sanctions but what the circumstances are in which he thinks they would be required? Will he specifically confirm whether he would regard it as an appropriate response to Russia using the referendum to tighten its grip on the Crimea? This would clearly represent a major step and should not be done without consideration of consequences, but does he accept that it may be necessary if we do not see the change of course that is needed from Russia?
Let me say in conclusion that we should continue to use all possible channels to facilitate dialogue, encourage the Ukrainian Government to be as broad-based as possible and recognise the constraints on the Prime Minister in seeking to reach EU-wide agreement. However, we urge the Government, particularly as we approach the referendum in Crimea, to apply maximum influence on our allies so that, in turn, maximum pressure can be applied on the Russian Government. Hesitancy or weakness on the part of the EU about its response will send the wrong message. The UK has a vital responsibility in making sure that that does not happen and that, instead, the EU and the US stand together in clear and united resolve. The Opposition will provide the Prime Minister with all the necessary support as he seeks to achieve this.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I am grateful for the comments of support from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and I agree with his concluding remarks about the responsibility that the British Government have—in particular the Prime Minister—in trying to pursue the twin-track approach in the way that the noble Lord described by working with both the United States and our partners in the European Union. I believe that the Prime Minister has been doing that assiduously in recent days.
I agree very much with the remarks that the noble Lord made at the beginning of his response about the importance of the contact group. It is, I suppose, our overriding aim at the moment to try to get that work taken forward and to apply pressure on the Russians to become involved in that process, because ultimately getting them and the Ukrainians to talk directly together is the most sensible way forward.
The noble Lord was concerned about whether the measures already announced were insufficient and he asked whether further action would be required if the Russians continue to behave in the way in which they have behaved in recent days. The honest answer to that is that the steps that Britain, the EU, the United States and others take will depend on the response that Russia gives. We are trying to be clear, consistent and predictable in setting out our position on that and on what would happen if Russia took further steps to destabilise Ukraine. That is what lies behind the idea of having a three-step, phased approach.
So far as travel bans and the freezing of assets are concerned, whether we move to that stage will depend on whether Russia agrees to the setting up of the contact group that we discussed. If Russia does not accept that, the Prime Minister has made it clear that travel bans and asset freezes would follow. He has also been clear that that should be able to happen within days rather than weeks, as the noble Lord asked me.
As to whether it would make sense to suspend preparations for the EU-Russia summit as well as for the G8, it is the Government’s view that it would make sense for those measures to be considered in tandem and that the summit should not go ahead under the current circumstances. In response to the noble Lord’s question, we would look at all our options. As to whether we should suspend Russia from the G8, if progress is not made in setting up the contact group a step that could be taken would be to bring forward the revival of the G7, which would send a very clear message to the Russians. However, it would be better if things did not come to that and if we could resolve the issue through diplomatic means.
So far as the arms licences and the timescale are concerned, the Government are keen to review that issue across the EU to create the greatest amount of common ground that we can. So far as Britain is concerned, as the Statement made clear, the Prime Minister has already given instructions that a review of arms licences between Britain and Russia should be carried out immediately.
I can confirm that broader economic and trade sanctions are being considered. If the referendum in Crimea is approved and endorsed by Russia, the Government’s position on it is extremely clear: we cannot accept the referendum as legitimate. We think that it would be essentially farcical. There is no electoral register, there is no ability for people living within Crimea to travel from one side of the region to another and it would be impossible to have a proper campaign in the time available. If, despite that, Russia were to respond to the referendum and claim that it was legitimate, then the kind of broader trade and economic sanctions to which the noble Lord referred would certainly be considered.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)
My Lords, I, too, join in thanking the Leader of the House for that rather cautious Statement, but perhaps caution is the order of the day at the moment. I would like to press him on two matters. One is the composition of the contact group. We heard last week of the formation of the group and, indeed, in today’s Statement we are told that the Prime Minister was considering this back in January. Would the contact group be an EU initiative comprising just EU countries or would it be a wider group of countries that are slightly more disinterested and possibly therefore have more leverage with Russia? The noble Lord will be aware that when I asked my Question about Ukraine on 27 February when the Russian action was just beginning, I asked whether the good offices of the United Nations Secretary-General would be employed. I urge the Leader of the House to take that message back. However, it may well be more significant to have a contact group that comprises the wider international community rather than just the EU countries that he has mentioned. Can he tell us his thinking in this regard?
My other point concerns the 21 February transition. It may well be worth considering now what measures from that transitional agreement might be applicable. Regarding the elections to be held on 25 May, it would seem legitimate to reflect that at this time, when intense diplomacy is required and when any miscalculation on the part of any country could result in an upping of the stakes, we should consider urging the Ukrainian Government to go for talks through a contact group or to have direct talks with Russia, rather than rushing to elections on 25 May, perhaps sticking to the agreement of 21 February to have elections a little later and, when those elections come, to offer protection for all minorities. I look forward to hearing my noble friend’s response.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I understand the points made by my noble friend about the composition of the contact group. When my right honourable friend the Prime Minister talked to President Putin yesterday, he made the point that the precise format and composition of those talks is slightly less important than getting them going. I am not able to give a precise answer as to who the participants might be because that would clearly be part of any negotiation and discussion that would need to take place. However, the points made by my noble friend will clearly be taken on board and listened to by the Foreign Office as we go forward, as will her other point about the transitional agreement and so on. At the moment, all these areas are in a state of flux, so I am clearly not able to answer with the kind of precision that my noble friend or others might request. However, at the moment our priority is certainly to seek to bring about a de-escalation. The best way of doing that, whatever its precise form, is to find a way of the Russians and Ukrainians talking directly to each other.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
My Lords, of course it is right that the Government should say that we cannot have constitutional change, and certainly not territorial change in the boundaries of any country, under duress or the threat of force. However, I would like some clarification on the Government’s position in respect of a referendum in Crimea. Again, the Government are quite right to say that the logistics of any referendum make it impossible or unrealistic for it to take place within a week or so. However, if it becomes the settled view of the people of Crimea or indeed any other country that the present constitutional arrangements are not to their liking, then surely it cannot be the Government’s permanent position that we will, as a matter of principle, say that we will reject that in all circumstances and at any cost.
Lord Hill of Oareford
Whatever form a referendum might take, it needs to be consistent with what is set out in the constitution of Ukraine itself. The simple point about the proposals for the referendum in Crimea is that it is utterly inconsistent with the Ukrainian constitution, which should control it—apart from some of the other practical points to which the noble Lord has already referred, including that when OSCE monitors and others have turned up to try to see the situation, they have been turned back at gunpoint.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
Has my noble friend noted some of the commentaries, particularly in the United States, where people still seem to think that we are fighting the Cold War? Will he join others in seeking to explain that the approach by our right honourable friends and our fellow European Governments in looking at the economics of the situation are a much more subtle and effective way of bringing pressure to bear on Moscow and Russia? Does he recall that the Russian economy really floats and survives on a sea of revenue from gas and oil? It may be a supplier, but suppliers need customers. This is the language in which we should bring to bear our efforts to improve Russia’s behaviour and make it more sensible in dealing with a very complex and difficult issue in the Crimea and in Ukraine.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My noble friend makes, as one would expect, a number of extremely pertinent and wise remarks which underline the fact that the importance of financial and trade sanctions should not be underestimated. There are those who seem to suggest that this is some kind of empty threat, but as my noble friend has illustrated forcefully, it is not an empty threat at all. That is why those options are all being considered. At the European Council meeting the member countries made it clear that those options would be considered if we needed to turn to them.
Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)
On the question of elections, is it not the case that if a country is divided very much on communal lines and identities itself in terms of nationalism, religion or, indeed, history and geography, as it does, elections which have been taking place under the present constitution—whether it is Tymoshenko or Yanukovych, whereby a result of 51% to 49% means winner takes all—do not work? I know enough about Ukraine to know that this has been coming for some time, because it does not work. Not only does it not solve problems, it exacerbates them. The United Kingdom has experience of something analogous, and I am talking about Northern Ireland. We all know that there are no easy answers but we found that instead of just having elections at 51% to 49%, along with Dublin—which is the equivalent of Moscow in this analogy—we brought people along, step by step, to power sharing. I do not know whether I can ascertain from the Leader of the House whether our experience here would be rather useful in discussions with our colleagues, and indeed with the people, in Ukraine. Can he say whether that experience has been brought to bear, and if not, would it be useful to do so?
Lord Hill of Oareford
The focus of the discussions last week was on prior questions about the need to set up a contact group, the legitimacy of the referendum, the steps that the EU would take and all the rest of it, rather than the minutiae—it is not minutiae, it is an important point—of how Ukraine would organise its own electoral system. I take the noble Lord’s point about some of our own experience, but I do not think that it is our task to try to prescribe how Ukraine carries out its own elections. The most important thing at the moment is that its constitution should be respected and its people should be able to make a decision themselves about the kind of future they want.
Lord Hylton (CB)
My Lords, I welcome the Statement, but will the Government give special thought and consideration to the position of the Crimean Tartars? After all, they suffered greatly under Stalin and have considerable reasons to be nervous now. For example, will the OSCE meet the Crimean Tartars and help them work out suitable future arrangements?
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, all sides of the House—certainly the Government—absolutely understand the significance of the point that the noble Lord has made about the position of the Crimean Tartars and the particular difficulties they have. We are certainly following developments in Crimea closely, including any impact specifically on the Crimean Tartars. I understand that our embassy in Kiev spoke recently with Mustafa Jemilev, who is one of the leaders of the Tartars. That was expressly for the purpose of expressing the support of the British Government and establishing contact during these difficult times.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, has the Prime Minister and his colleagues in the European Union considered the possibility of seeking a meeting with President Putin to discuss the sort of issues that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, touched on? A properly supervised referendum with international observers might offer a way forward. Bearing in mind that the future peace of our continent depends on stable relations with Russia, surely it is crucial that we do everything possible, as I am sure my right honourable friend the Prime Minister is doing, to defuse tensions and ensure that civilised dialogue can take place.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I agree with my noble friend that it is important to de-escalate the situation as much as we can and as rapidly as possible. It is certainly the case that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has been in direct contact with President Putin to discuss these issues and to press the case for establishing a contact group—which is, indeed, the most effective way of de-escalating the situation. I accept and agree with my noble friend that it is important to do what we can to defuse the situation. In that regard, I am sure that the House would agree with the proposition that the Ukrainian Government and people have been remarkably restrained in their response to the situation and done everything that they can not to rise to the bait. In accepting the wish to de-escalate, I think that we need to make it clear—and the Prime Minister has been making this clear—that if Russia chooses not to go down that route, consequences will follow, and we will be prepared, along with the Americans and the EU, to take whatever steps are necessary to make it clear that we cannot tolerate this kind of behaviour.
Lord Boateng (Lab)
The last time that this House gave detailed consideration to events in the Crimea, some 23,000 British and imperial soldiers died. There is still no fitting memorial to those soldiers in the Crimea. Will Her Majesty’s Government, when the heat and dust of this matter has died down, give serious consideration to the funding of the Crimea war memorial appeal?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I have sympathy with that proposition and the contribution that British soldiers have made in all kinds of spheres through our imperial and colonial history. However, at the moment, the Government’s focus is on trying to resolve this crisis and on making sure that we do not need another memorial to many more people who have been slaughtered. I am sure that others will have heard the noble Lord’s remarks.
Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD)
Does my noble friend agree that President Putin has undoubtedly drawn the conclusion from Georgia that the effective establishment of the status quo there is a green light for attempting the same in the Ukraine, and in the Crimea in particular? While I welcome the Statement, is not the most important message to get across that today’s heat and anger will not turn into a shrug of the shoulders a few weeks or months down the line?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I agree with the force of what my noble friend has said. That is why it is proposed, not only by Britain but across the EU and by the United States, that there should be a phased response whereby appropriate steps can be ratcheted up depending on the circumstances and the reaction of the Russians. That should help militate against the danger my noble friend sees of us turning our back when the immediate dust settles, which we all hope it will.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, I fear I may make some slightly controversial comments, although I do not wish to do so. Having worked within the Russian Government over several years in the 1990s—funded and supported by our own Foreign Office—I was conscious of the extraordinary humiliation of the Russian people as a result of the loss of so many territories at that time. Of course the situation in Crimea is extremely dangerous and incredibly undesirable. However, if we can look at the situation through Russian eyes, we should be conscious that they have the idea that Ukraine, their neighbour, their friend, their backyard, will become ever more allied to the European Union and that their naval base—well, where are we with that?
The only question I wish to raise with the Leader of the House is whether he feels that the Ukrainian Government have done enough to reach out and reassure the Russian people within Crimea—and, indeed, within their own territories—that they are citizens and part of the Ukraine. The impression I have is that their language law and the exclusion of all Russian speaking people from the Government was incredibly provocative and unhelpful. Can the Leader of the House assure us that behind the scenes a great deal of work is being done to encourage greater acceptance by the Ukrainian Government of their Russian people?
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I understand the sense of historical perspective and the points made by the noble Baroness about Russian history going back a very long time. Having said that, I do not think it excuses or detracts from the fundamental point that we cannot stand by if international agreements upheld by a range of countries are defied. I know that she was not saying that.
On her specific point, I agree that the more we are able, without deviating from the fundamental need to defend the rule of law, to demonstrate that the Ukrainians are sensitive to Russian concerns, the better. I take that point. The noble Baroness will therefore be encouraged by the action taken by the acting Ukrainian President to veto the introduction of the kind of language law to which she referred which played exactly into those prejudices. That is an encouraging step to have taken. As I said earlier, the Ukrainians have been quite remarkable in the restraint that they have shown in recent weeks and months in the face of often quite direct provocation.
Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)
My Lords, I am quite concerned about a number of aspects of the Statement. First, I regret the distinction being made between the phase 2 and phase 3 sanctions. The implication seems to be that, if Russia limits itself to annexing the Crimea without attacking the rest of Ukraine, the cost will be limited to the phase 1 to the phase 2 sanctions, which are not very onerous. I fear that, given the psychological and strategic importance of the Crimea, Mr Putin might think that the acquisition was rather a good deal on that basis.
Secondly, I am dubious about the idea of announcing asset seizures on a contingent basis in advance. If we need to seize these assets, by the time we get around to doing so they may have been removed from our jurisdiction. Would it not be more sensible to seize the assets in the first place and then negotiate the basis on which that seizure could be lifted?
Thirdly, has the Minister given consideration to, as a major sanction, the possibility of freezing Russian banks out of the interbank market? I am not going to ask whether or not that will happen or whether it was agreed in the EU Council for the obvious reason I have just mentioned in another context, but I would be grateful for his assurance that this matter has been or will be carefully considered. It amounts to instructing European and North American banks, when swaps and deposits with Russian banks mature, not to renew them.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I can confirm to the noble Lord that the Government and their allies will consider a range of possible sanctions which may well include the kind of measures to which the noble Lord has referred. When that work goes on, I am sure that people will think about those kinds of issues.
On the issue of phasing, as the noble Lord will know, it is difficult to be too precise in every respect at this stage about what measures will be taken precisely and in what circumstances. It will depend on what steps the various players take. It is a situation in flux. The Government and their allies, overall, were attempting not to box people in too early but to give people routes out and to have phased and gradated responses. However, we want to be clear in the final calculation that if, despite our best endeavours, Russia persists in this course of action, there will be serious consequences.
Immigration Bill
(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Hannay of Chiswick
“Exemptions to Part 3
No restrictions on access to tenancies, bank accounts, driving licences or other services, or charges for services, under this Part shall apply to persons—(a) holding Tier 4 (General) visas sponsored by a recognised higher education institution, or(b) holding Tier 2 visa and registered in full time undergraduate or postgraduate study at a recognised higher education institution.”
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, last week we had a useful debate about the negative impact of some aspects of the present Bill on overseas students, both undergraduates and postgraduates, wishing to come to this country. That debate took place on Amendment 26; today we are discussing Amendment 49.
Ministers can be in no doubt already of the depth of concern felt in all corners of the House about the damage being done by the cumulative effect of the Government’s immigration policy to what is, by common agreement, one of Britain’s most buoyant and valuable invisible exports, and of the strong desire that Ministers should think again before imposing any further charges or burdens on overseas students.
Last week we discussed the new appeals procedure; today we are considering what I would describe as the two most worrying aspects of the Bill so far as overseas students are concerned—the NHS charge and the provisions on accommodation. It is the aim of Amendment 49 to remove the threat to this very important part of our economy by, as it were, carving out full-time students from the application of those provisions.
I shall try not to weary the Committee with too much repetition of the general points and facts about the contribution of the higher education sector to our economy and the reasons for believing that it is already being harmed by the cumulative effect of the Government’s immigration policy, about which I have spoken—and that, I add, before any impact from the measures in the present Bill has taken effect.
I hope that the Minister can respond to this: what other British economic sector, bringing in more than £10 billion net a year and rising, is being put at risk by the Government’s own policies? Is there any other industry that we do that to? The latest statistics from the Higher Education Statistics Agency show that we are losing market share to our main competitors—to the US, Australia, Canada and, perhaps not too far in the future, to France and Germany, where more and more courses are being offered in English.
Let me cite one or two of the findings from a National Union of Students survey carried out in January this year on a sample of 3,000 overseas students already in this country; that is to say, people who will not be directly affected by the measures we are discussing today. Some 74% of them said that the proposed NHS charge would have made it more difficult or impossible for them to study in the UK, while 82% of those with dependants, who are mainly postgraduates paying much higher fees, of course, said that free access to the National Health Service was important to their choice to study here. Some 40% said that the introduction of landlord checks would have negatively impacted on their decision to study in the UK, and that figure rises to 51% in the case of PhD students. Those are pretty sobering findings.
When it is suggested that overseas students should surely in equity make some contribution to any welfare costs, it seems to be completely overlooked that such research as there is shows that the costs incurred are substantively outstripped by the benefits that these students bring to our economy. Unlike what I will call genuine economic migrants—people who come here looking for work—these people bring with them over £20,000 a year in cash which goes into our economy. They are creating employment both at our universities and in the towns and cities that host those universities, as research by the University of Sheffield shows. They often enable our universities to maintain a wider range of important subjects, such as engineering, science and mathematics, than would otherwise be the case. I do not imagine that anyone supposes that taxpayers’ money is going to be available to fill any gaps that might be caused by a shortfall in the number of overseas students who would otherwise be attracted by the excellence of our academic establishments.
I hope that I and others who are to speak to this amendment will have demonstrated why removing full-time undergraduate and postgraduate students from the scope of these measures, as Amendment 49 proposes, is not just a piece of special pleading but justified as a rational analysis of our national interest. I beg to move.
Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)
My Lords, my name is attached, along with others, to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. I will speak briefly to make one or two points that perhaps are not so widely part of this debate, because, as I have rung up acquaintances of mine in universities—I know quite a few, having been an Education Minister—I have become more aware of the depth of the challenge to our university and higher education system and, at one remove, of the depth of the challenge to the front wave of our economy in terms of its dependence on innovation and invention. I will not detain the Committee for long, but I believe that what I am saying, although supplementary to what has already been said by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, deserves a great deal of thought.
Let me begin by saying that what has attracted students from overseas to this country has been not only the English language and the excellence of our universities, but also a deep sense of our being an old and stable democracy. People have a sense of freedom of expression in this country, along with freedom of intellectual discussion and debate. There is no doubt that, rather surprisingly, in the fields of science and technological research, this country has continued to be a magnet for students from all over the world in a way that one would not really expect for a country of our size and one that is not in the very first rank of economies, like the United States at the present time. It is very important that the context of what attracts overseas students to this country is something that we maintain. In particular it means our marked ability to tolerate different points of view, and to tolerate people of different races, nationalities and languages. That has been a hallmark of studying in this country.
Anyone who reads the history of the United Kingdom will be more than aware that on three occasions we have benefited vastly from immigration. The first occasion was the immigration of German Jews in the 1930s, who brought with them an extraordinary level of understanding and knowledge of medicine and science, including a number of very distinguished Nobel laureates. The second great wave was immigration from the Caribbean in the 1960s without which, quite frankly, we would not have a working National Health Service today because of the huge contribution they have made to staffing that public service. The third wave, more recently, was of immigrants from Asia and east African refugees who came here in the 1970s and gave a tremendous boost to our commerce, business and research.
However, it is not the case that the concerns being expressed here are those only of overseas students, although I echo completely what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said about the very disturbing information from the National Union of Students. He mentioned the fact that more than 50% of undergraduate students said that they would think hard before coming to us again. Perhaps even more significant and important is that no fewer than 66% of postgraduate students—half of our overseas students are postgraduates—said exactly the same thing. In light of the changes being made—the increase in visa fees, the health surcharge and all the rest of it, these students would think hard before coming here again. Let me say in passing that we do not seem to recognise our extraordinary dependence on these postgraduate students. I can give an example. Time after time we have recruited doctors from the Indian subcontinent to sustain our health service. A great bulk of them have been postgraduate students who came from India to study in the United Kingdom and then went on to work as postgraduates, and in some cases decided to become citizens of this country and continue to sustain the NHS.
I would add to that that there are people of great significance and wisdom who would associate themselves powerfully with the view that the discouragement of overseas students has a devastating effect on our economy, in particular the science and engineering sectors. I shall quote two of them. The first example is a quotation from the CBI which has said in a public statement:
“Despite the government’s assurances to the contrary, many businesses fear that complex recent work permit and visa reforms have created a perception that Britain isn’t open for business”.
That is often treated as something that is said by those who come from outside this country, but no, it is something that has been said officially by the CBI, the leading organisation representing industry in the UK. The second example comes from the president of the Royal Society, Sir Paul Nurse, who is a very great scientist indeed. Time and again he has pleaded with Governments to give a more generous reception to overseas students. I shall quote his words:
“The rhetoric from the Home Office, combined with the complexity involved with immigration rules and visas, has led to a perception internationally that the UK is not particularly welcoming”.
I have given these examples because no one can pretend that these are partisan statements made for political ends. They are statements by distinguished people who believe that what they are saying should be a warning for the rest of us.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment because I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, that it is a fundamental mistake to subject international university students to further hurdles, barriers and restrictions. Instead, I believe this House should send a clear message to the Government: international students should be encouraged, welcomed and supported. This carve-out amendment would send that message, and I hope it will find wide support. I note that in adding my name to this amendment, I am joined by noble Lords from all sides of the House. Indeed, it is characteristic of our debates about international students that there is consensus among the parties. We know that at the highest level of the coalition, Cabinet Ministers recognise the absurdity of policy which drives the Government to stifle the UK’s prospects for growth in higher education exports—despite the fact that this is now one of our most important export markets and one with the strongest potential for growth.
While we invent new restrictions, our competitors are going to considerable lengths to reduce them. Australia, as is so often the case, has done us the favour of experimenting with draconian visa restrictions and has learnt from that experiment. The consequence was that students went elsewhere. After a wholesale review—the Knight review—Australia has rapidly set about undoing the damage that it inflicted on itself, streamlining visa processes and offering more generous post-study work opportunities as part of a dramatic about-face on immigration policy in relation to students. Nevertheless, Australia reckons it will take a decade to recover its former position.
We are not doomed to repeat that mistake, but we must stop being complacent about what is happening, which is why this amendment is so necessary. Ministers repeatedly quote partial UCAS and visa application figures as though they disprove the concrete enrolment data. The Minister must know that visa applications do not always translate into enrolments and that a relatively small proportion of international students apply through UCAS anyway—not least because UCAS does not deal with postgraduate admissions.
Recently, the right honourable Oliver Letwin used a Telegraph interview to point out that the Government’s net migration target was “statistical nonsense”. I agree. As senior Liberal Democrats have pointed out, it is not in fact coalition policy, but a Conservative pledge. It appears to me staggeringly unlikely that the target will be met. Can the Minister assure the House that he will use his influence to persuade his colleagues in the Government that this is the right time to withdraw gracefully from the position they have got themselves into?
I put it to the Minister that measures such as the ones we are dealing with in the Bill are part of a wider attempt to make the UK as unattractive as possible to those who might come here. Since students are the largest category of visa applicant, it particularly targets them. Since the majority of student visa applicants are now bound for our universities—because the Government have made it next to impossible for everyone else—they, in turn, are particularly hard hit. I agree that many other groups will be hit by the residential tenancy and NHS surcharge provisions in the Bill, and I shall certainly join other noble Lords in supporting amendments that would reduce the impact of the Bill on all migrants, not just students. Meanwhile, I urge noble Lords not to be distracted by arguments that the amendment we are now debating will not help other groups.
I understand the charge that support for this amendment looks like special pleading from the university lobby, but it misses the point: the overwhelming majority of those affected by these measures will be students, many of them living away from home for the first time. There seems a real risk that those students will choose to go elsewhere if they are faced with high initial charges for access to NHS services and are prevented from securing accommodation in advance of their arrival. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and others that the wholesale exemption of students would be preferable to piecemeal improvement.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, 20 years ago, along with my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Radice, I was invited by the late, great—I use the word advisedly—Lord Dahrendorf, one of the most remarkable international figures ever to grace your Lordships’ House, to be a visiting parliamentary fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford. We were the first two. I am sure I speak for the noble Lord, Lord Radice, who is not in his place. We were immensely impressed by this postgraduate Oxford college, which attracted students from all over the world. Many of them went on to hold positions of high importance and real influence in their native countries but always had a sense of real gratitude, affection and, indeed, obligation to the institution at which they had studied here.
I am still a member of the Senior Common Room at St Antony’s and just a couple of weeks ago I was talking to our present warden, Professor Margaret MacMillan, herself an eminent Canadian historian who has just written a most remarkable book on the origins of the First World War. She said that at the moment there are students from 73 different countries at St Antony’s, and that many current Governments of the world include those who received at least part of their education there. I believe there are four or five in the Mexican Government alone.
That is truly remarkable but it is not unique to St Antony’s, eminent as that institution is. When students come to this country and study, they contribute far more than they obtain, and go back with a knowledge and affection for the United Kingdom. Of course, that does not apply just at postgraduate level. In the fair city of Lincoln, where I now live, we have two universities: the University of Lincoln, which has in a remarkably short space of time become a very significant university; and the smaller Bishop Grosseteste University, which began more than 100 years ago as an Anglican teacher training college and is now a proper university. Both those universities have students from a variety of countries.
As the head of another college said to me not long ago, we are in danger of making those who consider applying feel that they are not entirely welcome here. I cannot for the life of me believe that that is our intention. Of course it is not. I know it is not the Prime Minister’s; I know it is emphatically not the view of my noble friend the Minister. Nevertheless, as we all know, perceptions in politics are very important. There are, in India in particular, young men and women who believe that they are not as welcome as we should make them feel.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, I strongly support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, which seeks to remove tier 2 and tier 4 students from the Bill in all its aspects. I will speak also to my own Amendment 57, which relates specifically to the health charges for tier 2 and tier 4 students. Before I do that, I will just comment on the unintended consequences of some of the Bill’s provisions.
Let us take the evidence that students will have to produce of their bona fide tier 2 or tier 4 visas. I came to this country as an east African Asian schoolboy in the late 1950s, to do A-levels before entering university. I did them at a school in Harrow—not the public school. That is not the point. The point is I went to look for accommodation, which I eventually found, and I still remember the address: 38 Priory Road NW6, near Kilburn. The adverts for rooms in the newspapers that I looked at would either say “No blacks” or they would say nothing. So you went to addresses whose adverts did not say, “No blacks”—what was the point of going to a place that did? Sometimes the door would open and shut in your face, with a response, “Sorry, the room has gone”, before they even asked whether you had gone there for a room. There will be unintended consequences of having to provide proof for non-EU students. Later I found out why there were five east African Asians and one non-east African Asian—there were six of us—staying at that address. It was because we were paying a higher rent. The landlord—whom I would not name, but I do remember his name—knew that we were no trouble. We were no trouble because we had no money anyway. We were law-abiding, decent young people—I hope. But that is exactly what will happen: those landlords who are willing to take non-EU students will charge higher rents. That will be the unintended consequence of the clause in this Bill relating to renting.
That is one good reason why I would favour a carte blanche removal of students from this legislation. I declare an interest: I am the chancellor of the University of Dundee. With our strength in life sciences and being the second university in Dundee with strength in computer sciences, we have a large number of non-EU students. A tier 2 student’s perception of a health levy would be that this was just another example of unfriendliness in the United Kingdom. They would already have paid a lot of money for visas, for English language tests and sometimes for interviews, and they will now have to pay more. Is there an evidence base to suggest that students access the NHS disproportionately? There is no evidence, from general practice, from A&E departments or from specialist hospitals, that students disproportionately access healthcare—quite the reverse. In my case, the students that we used to see were the girls who came to contraceptive clinics, but, most of the time, even my wife, who did general practice, did not see students particularly. So there is no evidence that students disproportionately access the NHS.
It has already been said that there are huge net economic gains to be had from having students in this country—of several billion pounds. A study carried out by Oxford Economics showed that students in Sheffield contributed £120 million to the local economy. Let us remember that they pay for housing; they pay for their travel; they pay for everyday living costs; and they also pay indirect taxes because they buy stuff on which they have to pay VAT. There is no economic loss associated with our having international students. However, the likely impact of a perception—it might be a perception but perception becomes a reality—is a decline in the number of overseas students, particularly in STEM subjects and in those related to medicine where at one time there were large numbers. Figures that I have been quoted show that the total number of visa applications fell from 313,000 in 2009-10 to 207,000 in 2012-13. Forty per cent of our students come to university through pathway providers, which are mainly independent schools. They have seen a decline of 21% and we are likely to see a further decline in total numbers as a result of these pathway students not coming to university. All in all, including international students in the provisions of this Bill will have a greater detrimental effect on universities.
It was interesting to read in evidence given to the Science and Technology Committee inquiry on STEM subjects by Philip Lockett of London South Bank University, Ian Bradley of Manchester University and Daniel Stevens of the NUS—noble Lords can read the transcript—that they felt that an NHS levy and charges would deter students coming to the UK, even though such a levy might be only £150. Tier 2 students—the postgraduate and research students—are among the most valuable students that you can have. From them, you pick out the brightest and the best, and you keep them here because they will contribute to our university strength. They felt that the levy and other difficulties that the Bill would pose for them in finding accommodation et cetera would deter them from coming here. In a survey of 3,100 students, 83% of PhD students felt that the levy would have a detrimental effect; 82% of those who had dependants said that it would have a detrimental effect—let us remember that the levy is on top of the visa cost for dependants that is going up by 50%. All these costs quite rightly add to their perception that we do not welcome non-EU international students. I know that we have had that debate and that it is not the intention of the Government, but the perception needs to be addressed.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury (LD)
My Lords, I had a communication this very morning from the University of Essex, from which I stood down as chancellor at Christmas after more than 10 years, which drew my attention to the fact that the Times of India newspaper recently had a headline stating, “Indian students feel unwelcome in Britain”. Other noble Lords have mentioned that. Indeed, the speeches we have had do not leave a great deal in need of saying, but I want to emphasise a couple of things.
The University of Essex, apart from the London School of Economics, has the greatest proportion of overseas students of any university in the United Kingdom. Happily, I may say that undergraduate applications for this year, coming in the autumn, have declined by only 1%, although it is notable that the decline in applications from China and India is 16%, which has all sorts of significances of which I am sure the Committee is aware and on which I shall not enlarge.
What I want to emphasise—and the noble Lord in moving the amendment touched on it very effectively—are the non-economic aspects of a university education in this country. I think that many here now would agree that our universities and the opportunity that they provide to students from every corner of the globe are a jewel in our national crown. It is quite extraordinary that we are, almost inadvertently, undertaking a series of changes that lead to the consequences which other noble Lords have emphasised in terms of the dropping-off of applications to come here and so on. The non-economic consequences of having overseas students at our universities can be underestimated. Some talk of it as “soft power”. I understand the force of the phrase, but I am more keen, if one is allowed to be in this age, on the personal ties and relationships that are formed by having a large body of overseas students among our students here, whether undergraduate or postgraduate. Those personal ties, loyalties and affections work miracles after they go away from their university, miracles in all aspects of human life: cultural and economic, of course, as well as personal, societal—you name it. I think that all of us would agree that the most valuable thing that we ever take from a university is our relationships and the extraordinary broadening of our understanding of the lives of other people in other continents that comes from a close, lifelong relationship with someone you have met at university or some number you have met. I am lucky enough to have a number of lifelong friends who came from other countries. What you get from that and they from you cannot be put in terms of pounds, shillings and pence and is of infinite value in a world wracked with problems and tensions. This country cannot with any semblance of common sense do anything to damage in any way that jewel in our crown at a time when the whole wide world is competing for students. Everybody wants foreign students. Every country in the world is expanding its student base at huge rates—China and India are two exemplars.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
There we are: he is an optimist from the Fens. I hope that he will take heed of all that has been said. I have just a small last point. The bureaucratic consequences of the Bill are horrendous, and the amendment has a wonderful simplicity about it. It simply removes overseas students from the tentacles of I do not know how many aspects of our modern, burgeoning bureaucracy.
Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)
My Lords, I believe this to be a very important amendment, and I am very glad to follow the noble Lord, Lord Phillips.
As some noble Lords will know, I spend some of my time visiting African developing countries with a view to promoting agriculture, and smallholder agriculture in particular, as a tool for development. While I am there, often on parliamentary visits, I meet parliamentarians in those countries, Cabinet Ministers, Prime Ministers, Vice-Presidents and even occasionally Presidents, and heads of institutions, top civil servants, heads of research stations and so on. It amazes me how many of those people have paid for themselves to be educated at British universities and institutions.
Being a bit more mercenary than the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, I want to make the point that the resultant Anglophilia that that education gives them, the resultant ingestion of our culture, way of life and thinking must be of huge value to UK Inc, as it were. It must be worth all the budget of the British Council, the BBC World Service, millions of pounds-worth of diplomacy in embassies, millions of pounds-worth of DfID’s great worldwide reputation and even, if it came to a fight, probably a couple of regiments as well.
We must do everything possible to encourage—not just not to discourage but to encourage—those overseas students because, in the short and long term, their value to us is huge. This is a very good case of government silos, because the Home Office clearly sees its job as to control immigration but ignores in this case the wider implications for UK business, UK education and UK reputation in its foreign policy. I beg the Minister to send out the message to the world that we are open for business and that those students—most likely the future leaders of their country—should be given every incentive possible, not just not discouraged but seriously encouraged, to come to pay for themselves to attend our institutions and absorb our culture and values.
Lord Tugendhat (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, said that the amendment enjoyed support from all quarters of the House. I speak as the Conservative sponsor of the amendment, and I am very happy to do so.
We have heard a number of powerful speeches and I think that I agree with every word that has been spoken. I particularly draw attention to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, in his introduction when he said that he was not making a special plea for any given set of individuals. Rather, he was pleading on behalf of one of the most successful sectors of British life and of the British economy in order to enable it to continue to be one of the most successful, not only within this country but in international terms.
If I may say so, it is very important when the Minister answers that he should not treat this as being something directed towards a particular group of people who come to this country, as if we are conferring some favour on them. Rather, he should deal with the issue in the context of the impact that the Government’s proposals will have on one of the most successful sectors of British life and of the British economy. The ability to attract international students is both a means by which British universities excel and a measure by which others can see that they are excelling. To diminish in any way the free flow of talent to this country would be very damaging.
I should like to make one final point, because so much has been said that there is no point in repeating it. The Government should look at the beam in their own eye, if I may say so, on this issue. The Government understand very well that, when they make senior appointments to different institutions, they want to attract talent from all over the world. Indeed, they boast of their ability to do that and of their willingness to make appointments of non-Brits to high places in this country in a way that most other countries would not in the case of foreigners. They paid vast sums of money to attract a redoubtable Canadian to run the Bank of England—about four times what the president of the Federal Reserve gets, they were so anxious to attract his talents to this country. Another very talented Canadian—paid rather less, actually—is at the head of the Royal Mail. There are many other examples, I am happy to say, of talented people being attracted by the Government to contribute to the British economy.
The Government understand perfectly well the importance of attracting the best people to run British institutions, and they should be commended for their lack of chauvinism in that regard, but that is also true of universities. If universities cannot continue to attract the best talent from all over the world, that will seriously damage their ability to continue to contribute as much as they do to the British economy. As my noble friend Lord Cormack, said, those who stay after graduation are often the people who contribute the most to academic research, industrial start-ups or the businesses they build up. Those are all factors which I feel that the Government have overlooked in this rather ill-conceived measure.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, I should like to say just a few words in support of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, based on my experience as chancellor of Strathclyde University for 17 years. Having spoken to many students of the kind we are talking about and having hosted alumni events overseas, I think that my experience has been very similar to that described by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, in that we have trained those students in our country and find them in positions of great influence in the countries to which they went after leaving.
I shall not repeat the points made so well by so many other noble Lords; I endorse all of them as background to what I should like to say. Perhaps the Minister will be kind enough to focus precisely on what the amendment is intended to do. If he reads its wording, he will see that it encompasses all the various things in Part 3: access to tenancies, bank accounts, driving licences and other services. Of course, among the services is what Clause 33 deals with: access to the health service. There is a difference between the Clause 33 matter, which I shall come back to in a moment, and the other services mentioned in the opening words of the amendment.
The difference is this. As I understood the Minister’s words in the earlier debate, the purpose of the other clauses is to flush out people who are not entitled to be here. It is to deal with people who are not legal migrants. We find that in Clauses 16(2), 35(2) and 42(1) all of which direct attention to people who require leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom but do not have it. I raise this point because the amendment is dealing with tier 2 and tier 4 visa holders—people who, because of the terms of their visas, are entitled to be here. Bearing in mind all the points that noble Lords have made, why is it necessary to subject tier 2 visa holders and tier 4 general visa holders to these restrictions? Why is it necessary for them to go through these hurdles to have access to, for example, a bank account? Why is it necessary to do that for driving licences?
As for Clause 33, that is a different point and I do not want to go over the debate that we had earlier this afternoon. However, while I did not intervene in that debate because the Minister was under great pressure from many people who were doing that very thing, there is one point that struck me in looking at Clause 33. It is that its wording, which is designed to confer a power on the Secretary of State to make provisions for charges to impose, begs so many questions. Who, for example, are the persons on whom the charge is to be imposed? Clause 33(1)(b) refers to,
“any description of such persons”,
but who are they and what is the intention of that provision? We then have all the various steps in subsection (3), including the points that other noble Lords drew attention to. With the greatest respect, my suggestion is that the noble Lord and those advising him should have a very careful look at the wording of Clause 33. I suspect that the debate which we had earlier, and which I am not going to rehearse, has flushed out some points of real concern about the breadth of the wording, what it is really intended to do and whether it is necessary to do what it is seeking.
Quite apart from that, there is the point that others have made: that to subject overseas students to this sort of extra charge is bound to have consequences. Two words struck me as I have been listening to the debate. One was “cumulative”, in the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. It is about the cumulative effect of all those measures that are made. The other was “perception”, because perception is fuelled by rumour. Figures have been put forward in this debate as to what students in this country, and perhaps overseas students, are thinking. What about all those who are wondering to which country they should come? They are the people whose perception should really worry us. There are also the rumour makers. Their rumours may not be based on accurate figures, which may have been the point that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, was making the last time that we spoke. However, the fact is that the rumours and the perception are there. The Government really have to face up to the fact that to pile on more cumulative items on to this package of things which are fuelling that perception is very ill advised. I hope that the Minister will explain to us why he believes it necessary to do that.
Baroness Benjamin (LD)
My Lords, I support Amendment 49, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and I agree with everything that has been said so far in support of that amendment.
I would like to highlight the views of the students’ guild at Exeter University, where I am chancellor and so I express an interest. The students’ guild has raised concerns on behalf of the international students at the university, with whom it has had several meetings. The most worrying thing to come out of this meeting is about the proposal that international students must prove to potential landlords that they have the right to be in the UK before they are allowed to secure accommodation. As many international students are required to secure accommodation before they come to the UK, this poses an unnecessary and potentially impossible burden for them as they will not be able to present the documentation needed. The students’ guild also feels that this check will force many to endure extra expense, as letting agents charge for the process, yet the Government gain no further value in this monitoring. In addition, it feels that landlords may turn anyone who they perceive to be from international backgrounds away from their accommodation because they do not understand how to check for immigration status and do not want to risk the £3,000 fine.
Lord Marlesford (Con)
My Lords, I would like to speak, as briefly as I do passionately, in support of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. My noble friend the Minister is well aware that I have always been enthusiastic about the proper, effective and efficient control of our borders in the national interest. Indeed, there are a number of areas in respect of national security where there is much more that can be done. I hope to introduce some amendments on Report to fill some of those gaps.
However, it is very sad that, when a government department is seeking to produce policies to deal with sensitive issues and there is a choice between being subtle and acting in a crass manner, all too often the crass seems to win. I am convinced that the overwhelming empirical evidence is that students who come to this country, whether they be at schools, universities, business colleges or military establishments such as Sandhurst, Cranwell or the Royal College of Defence Studies, contribute hugely to their own future as well as ours. One of the features of this relatively small country is the way that we act as a catalyst in world chemistry. We are a catalyst for tolerance, for the rule of law, for decency and for the cultural and political aspects of what we call civilisation. I would never be able to vote for something that reduces our country in respect of being that catalyst.
The Earl of Sandwich (CB)
My Lords, the Minister will not be surprised that I wanted to have a last word about colleges. We have many illustrious representatives of the universities but every time that we have this debate I think, “Why has no one mentioned the colleges?”. The proportion of foreign students in our colleges and other institutions is quite a bit higher. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, refers in the amendment to “all institutions”, so they are covered, but the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, made an important point about the sustaining of courses: if you do not have enough students, you do not have enough courses. This is happening right now. I know personally of a college in London—I am not a representative of it—that is losing staff and courses as fast as it is losing its students. I think that last year they had an 80% loss, which they are now trying to make back up again. I remind the Minister of my interest there.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)
My Lords, in opposing the amendment, I certainly do not do so in any spirit of being against the importance that higher education students have to this country; clearly, they are important. We have had some very passionate speeches, with which I find myself much in agreement, about the danger of speculation, rumour and perception. However, it is important that we keep the changes that are put forward in perspective, and that we look at some of the facts as well. I put down some Written Questions and had back some answers based on figures from the Office for National Statistics about student numbers from some of our important markets. The latest figures available show significant rises from China, Hong Kong and Malaysia. Admittedly there are falls from India, but that is against a background of a fall in the value of the rupee, and other countries, such as Australia, have also noticed a fall in Indian student numbers. One or two noble Lords suggested that already a drop in student numbers was feeding through. That is certainly not true of many of our important markets.
Yes, perception is important, as are overseas students, but I would like to say something specific about the health charge, because I do not think that the amount has been addressed directly. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, suggested that we were suggesting that students were making calls on the health service disproportionately. I do not think that that is being suggested. I accept that that is not remotely the case.
Lord Patel
Just to clarify, my Lords, I was suggesting that students do not make disproportionate claims on the NHS.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
That is certainly true but of course the charge is lower than the charge for other people, so that is going to be recognised in the proposal. The amount of the charge, at £150 per year, is significantly less than the average student would cost the health service, and I accept that that is as it should be. I think that the charge is actually lower than for other people. We need to get in perspective just how much the charge is: it is £150. I am not minimising that but, if you look at it spread over a year, and many of the students at a higher level will be here for a full year, you see that it is the cost of a Sunday newspaper each week throughout the year. It is important to keep that in perspective.
I look at the charge in terms of whether it is fair. I know what the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, suggested, but we have to look at it in the round against the other changes. Compared with the other proposals, is it not fair that students should pay a charge, a levy, as well? I think that it is, against the background of the Bill and indeed of the other people in this country who have contributed.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I was a bit puzzled by his saying that the charge is spread over a year. The whole point about this charge is that it is not spread over a year but is paid up front. Moreover, if you ask for a visa for the whole of your study period, the charge is tripled and up front.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I was specifically addressing the health charge. When I say that it is spread over the year, I mean that the benefits are spread over a whole year, and many students are here for a whole year. I appreciate that it is paid as a lump sum. On the issue of fairness, I think that it is fair, looked at across the broad sweep of the changes that are being proposed.
The other issue is whether the charge is competitive. Some noble Lords have cited the position in the United States. As I understand it, they require insurance, and the cost of that is at a much higher level. The USA is the chief market for students; more students go there, as has rightly been said, than elsewhere. I am not suggesting that we slavishly follow the USA, but, if we are going to make the point about competition, we have to look at other states and how they handle this issue. Many of them have a charge or require insurance. We have to look at it globally in that way.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, I suspect that we are rapidly moving into territory where everything has been said but not everyone has said it. Given that, I wanted to respond not only to the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, but also to my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness, who responded a week ago to Amendment 26 from the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and my noble friend Lady Hamwee’s Amendment 80 to reassure us about the impact of the Bill. The fact is, though, that the Bill exacerbates the impact of previous policies towards overseas students. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and many other noble Lords have talked about the contribution to the UK economy and to soft power, while my noble friend Lord Phillips has talked about personal ties.
However, the hard figures already show a drop in overseas student numbers. My noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, today, have taken comfort from the increase in Chinese students in particular in recent years, compared to Australia and France. If the riposte of the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, and my noble friend Lady Williams was not enough, the recent British Council document Education in East Asia—by the Numbers (Making Sense of the Slowdown in Outbound Student Mobility from China) shows a global slowdown in outbound Chinese student numbers. This demonstrates that we cannot stand still and that we need to increase our share of Chinese students if the numbers are not to fall. That is the very latest document from the British Council.
We cannot take the risk of alienating aspiring students from China and other emerging markets. My noble and learned friend Lord Wallace said:
“We are still an attractive proposition for people wishing to come and study”—[Official Report, 3/3/14; col. 1192]—
but he himself admitted to us that a good story is not being told and it cannot be told with the Bill as it is. No one quarrels with measures designed to prevent abuse of the immigration system, but if we do not redress the impression—indeed, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, said, the perception—that students are not welcome, we will see more severe reductions in student numbers. What better way to counter that impression than to totally exempt overseas students from the Bill?
Lord Woolf (CB)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, indicated that nearly everything that people wanted to say has already been said. I am only too conscious that that is the truth, because the second of the two short points that I wanted to make has just been made by the noble Lord himself.
The reason why I think the amendment should be welcomed by the Government is that it is a signal that we do want students. I know a bit about the university world because for a time I was chairman of the council and pro-chancellor of London University and then chairman of the council of University College London. What is needed is something to point to so as to destroy the perception, which is undoubtedly increasing, that this country does not want students. If we made this exemption, when those who are attached to universities travelled the world to recruit students, as they do, they could respond to that perception by saying, “This is nonsense. Look at what we did in the Immigration Bill”—which by then would be an Act of Parliament—“and you can see that it takes a step which positively is favourable for students”. That would be a very important message.
I want to make a point that I do not think has yet been mentioned. Although I agree with everything that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, has said, I fear that he was probably more economical with his time than I am being with mine and did not want to mention it, but if you travel to many parts of the world, as the noble and learned Lord and I have done, you find that in most countries you visit there are substantial numbers of former law students who are struggling to establish the rule of law there. The interest in the rule of law around the globe is growing all the time, and its importance in international affairs is being constantly demonstrated. The Statement we had today emphasised the importance of the rule of law. Students who have received a grounding in law in this country go back to their countries and are the champions of furthering the rule of law. So, again, it is right to say that we want to be able to make ourselves as competitive as possible in that regard.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
What an excellent debate this has been, my Lords. I have counted 16 speakers on one side, and one on the other. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, on putting his head above the parapet. Although I think he picked up some of the arguments, I did not think his heart was entirely in it, but he put up a brave show. There was lots of vigorous nodding on the Front Bench, but all to no avail.
This amendment seeks to exempt bona fide overseas students from the provisions relating primarily to housing and health charges because I do not think, despite the fact that the amendment says so, that bona fide students are caught by the measures on bank accounts and driving licences, but I would be grateful if the Minister would confirm that when he responds.
This amendment has received considerable support from around the House. We should not really be surprised at that. I took part in a debate about nine months ago that was led by the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, whose committee had reported on just this point. That debate was again virtually unanimous in recommending that the Government’s then policies should be reviewed carefully to ensure that they supported the arrival and proper education of students from overseas, but here we are.
There seem to be two main thrusts to the arguments which have been made by noble Lords today: first, that this series of measures is one of a number of hurdles and burdens that, taken together, represent an attack on our universities, making it more difficult for students from overseas to study here and thereby endangering one of our most successful exports; and secondly, that the measures are unworkable, possibly discriminatory and overly bureaucratic, will not achieve what they set out to do and should be withdrawn. We have a great deal of sympathy with both those arguments, and we will be listening carefully to what the Minister has to say on the questions that have been raised this afternoon, and I am certain that we will be returning to this matter on Report.
At Second Reading, I referred to the recent BIS publication International Education: Global Growth and Prosperity. Its introduction states:
“There are few sectors of the UK economy with the capacity to grow and generate export earnings as impressive as education”.
It goes on:
“Overseas students who come to Britain to study make a huge contribution to our economy”.
As we have heard, the most recent estimates are that overseas students paid about £10.2 billion net in tuition fees and living expenses in the UK. They boost the local economy where they study as well as enhancing our cultural life and broadening the educational experience of the UK students they study alongside.
This BIS report makes it clear that attracting international students is not an easy matter and that we have many competitors. If the numbers of international students in higher education is to stay as it is or even to grow, there are a number of things we must do right. The report picks out that,
“we must show that the UK values international students, will provide a warm welcome and support while they are here and will keep in touch after they go home".
The questions for the Minister when he comes to reply are, first, whether the measures proposed in the Bill support the assertion made by the Government that the UK is open for international students and that they are welcome to come here; and secondly whether the measures in this Bill help, not hinder, both that general supposition and the reality faced by overseas students in gaining a visa and making a success of their studies here.
There are a number of other questions that I hope the Minister will respond to. He has a good record, not of answering across the Dispatch Box, but at least in writing to us, and I hope he will pick up the various points that have been made. As I was listening, the questions that struck me included: has the department an assessment of the continuing viability of certain STEM courses in particular, of courses offered in higher education in general, and of certain institutions as a result of the decline in student numbers that we think will happen if these measures are introduced? This was spoken to very positively by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and others. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, wanted to know more about the impact on soft power. Have the Government made an assessment of the reduction of soft power as a result of these measures? Has the Minister talked to the CBI about its call for changes in the way in which the visa arrangements operate for various important aspects of supporting the economy? Has the department made an assessment of competitor countries, such as Canada and Australia, and their measures for supporting overseas students? If it has done that, will the Minister put a copy of the evidence in the Library so that we can look at it, because it would make interesting reading? What assessment has the department made of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, about personal contact? That is something that we all have experience of and recognise. He said that we cannot measure it in economic terms, and he may be right, but I think you probably could value it. It is certainly important in terms of the world that we live in.
In the commentary circulated after Second Reading, the Minister did not really engage with the issues that have been raised this afternoon. He wafted away rather airily some of the points made by several speakers and did not feel that the discouragement of international students would affect the way they choose the UK, although we have heard differently today. I think the view around the Committee is that these additional procedures and costs will create the impression that it is harder to secure a visa to study in the UK than it is in other countries. Even if that is not the case, it will add significantly to the up-front visa cost compared to our competitors. What evidence is there that the Home Office recognises the risks it is taking in relation to our competitiveness in this market?
On the detailed points, residential accommodation has attracted the most attention. There is no suggestion from what we have read from the Government that they have any interest in how this system must look to prospective students. As we have heard, international students already face difficulties in securing accommodation and are often made to pay large fees and advance rent payments. As the noble Lord, Lord Patel, reminded us, this Bill may result in landlords refusing even to consider international students as tenants or charging higher rents or additional fees to cover the extra hassle and administration costs. Does the Minister not agree that this clause could cause considerable anxiety and could add to the perception that the UK is unwelcoming?
In the Minister’s commentary, he said:
“I do not think the measures would discourage private landlords from letting to international students”,
because,
“landlords in our university towns and cities are familiar with their clientele and know that they represent a sound and stable choice of tenant for their properties, in the main for at least an academic year if not longer”.
So that is okay then. To his credit, the Minister conceded in his commentary that certain categories of student accommodation would be exempted from the landlord’s provisions and said,
“we will look closely at the rationale for doing so when we consider this in Committee”.
I look forward to his further thoughts on this important point this evening.
Some noble Lords raised the position of international students who need to arrange accommodation in advance of their arrival. In the commentary, the Minister said:
“The Government intends to make regulations under the Bill which will provide for overseas students to be able to arrange accommodation in advance of taking up their studies in the UK, and for such tenancies to be entered into conditional on the production of the relevant visa or residence permit when the student arrives and takes up residence”.
It would be useful if we can have further information on that because it is clearly a very important point.
Given that overseas students with the requisite visa are often offered accommodation owned or administered by the university which is offering them a place, why does the Bill not recognise this and simply exempt all such university-provided accommodation, including the currently exempted halls of residence?
A number of noble Lords expressed concerns about the proposed introduction of the NHS charges. The main argument seems to be that international students and staff already make a significant contribution to the UK economy. International students bring in over £10 billion a year, while international academic staff pay taxes and national insurance while they are here.
The Government’s plans are for a health surcharge for access to NHS services of about £200 in general and £150 a year for students. As the noble Earl, Lord Howe, said in his letter to all noble Lords, over a working life, the payment of taxes and NI contributions usually provides a contribution to the NHS but new arrivals have not yet done so, and are not likely to be able to build up the long-term commitment and contribution that those permanently settled here have made. We do not object to the principle, since it is legitimate for those who are coming to partake in the system to make a contribution, particularly when the NHS is under pressure, but it is legitimate to press the Minister on whether a one-off cost, payable in full at the time that the visa is obtained, is actually in the best interests of our commitment to overseas students. That is the question.
A couple of other questions were raised during the debate, and I shall mention them for completeness. Has the department done any research to test whether this new system will discourage undergraduate and postgraduate applications and, if it has, will the Minister place a copy in the Library so that we can look at it? As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, said, given that the Bill deals mainly with illegal immigrants, not those with leave to be present, why is Clause 33 really necessary? The point here is that the students are already covered by the visa application. Surely that can be considered sufficient on this point. Can the Minister when he responds, or separately in writing, give us the argument for the £50 discount on students? It is £200 for most people but £150 for students. If there are reasons for that, I would be interested to know what the economic argument would be, given the disproportionate use that is made of the NHS by students. Fifty pounds seems an odd figure to have chosen.
Fees, charges and living costs already make the UK a relatively expensive destination for study. As others have said, the Government cannot on the one hand impose new procedures and costs for prospective overseas students and on the other blandly claim that we are “open for business”. As the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, said, it would be wrong to think of this amendment as special pleading for the students. This is actually about our standing in the world, our history and our culture, and about our economy going forward.
Taken as a whole, the requirements for students who wish to study in the UK are in many cases much more stringent than in our competitor countries, particularly when you take into account language requirements, academic progression, limits on study time, the ability to bring in dependants and police registration. These new challenges will have an effect. Do the additional cost and hassle, and the impression that we are tightening up, justify the risk? Perceptions, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, reminded us, are important in this matter. Are we, as the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said, killing the golden goose?
I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response. However, like the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, I believe that we will need to return to this issue on Report.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
Well, my Lords, this subject certainly engenders good and powerful debates. If arguments are repeated, perhaps noble Lords feel that they are worth repeating. I have to repeat my arguments. I am afraid that the Government cannot accept the amendment, but perhaps I can help noble Lords by telling them why that is, and why we feel that, despite our policy of welcoming the brightest and the best with no limit on numbers, students are an important part of any strategy which deals with immigration.
I start with that strategy. The noble Baroness, Lady Warwick of Undercliffe, challenged me on the whole business of net migration. Reaching the tens of thousands remains the Government’s objective. We chose a net migration target because we want to control immigration due to its effects on social cohesion, infrastructure and public services. These arguments are frequently discussed in other areas, but they form the background to why this legislation has come forward. Jobs and wages are affected by migration but, when it comes to students, there is no cap on numbers—I repeat, no cap on numbers—of genuine students who want to come here. They are welcome. Those who have the right qualifications, sufficient funds to cover their fees and maintenance costs and a good level of English can study here, and there is no limit on numbers. Our reforms, to tackle the widespread abuse that was occurring in the system we inherited, have favoured our world-class universities.
Those reforms are working. The number of issued student visas has dropped by around 27% from the high in 2009, while visa applications from university students were up 7% in the year ending December 2013 and applications from students going to Russell group universities were up by 11%. Higher education statistics show that numbers of international students in our universities held steady in 2012-13, with a small decline of 1%—but numbers of UK and EU students have fallen by more than that. It is true that there has been a decline in the number of Indian students at our universities, but this followed a period of soaring numbers and, by contrast, there has been strong growth in numbers of students from China, Malaysia and Hong Kong in 2012-13.
Lord Hope of Craighead
Is the noble Lord suggesting that the unaccounted-for balance is made up of overstayers without leave to remain or people who, having studied here, are given permission to remain for longer than was originally envisaged?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I think that the noble and learned Lord will understand that I suggest both. The graduate course has been a success—we are increasing the numbers of students who are staying on for postgraduate work—and the business entrepreneur course is equally successful. There will be some, but there is unfortunately still some evidence that the tier 4 student migration group—it is a special route; it is not the same as everything else; students are treated as a special case—is being misused in some cases. That is why it is important that we have checks in place to make sure that that does not occur.
My noble friend Lady Williams suggested that the exceptional talent route has dismally failed. We do not accept that. We recognise that the number of visas that are taken up under that is low, but it was always thought that that would be the case. However, we are working with all the competent bodies—the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the British Academy and the Arts Council—to improve the process so that the visa process payment will not be paid until the competent body has endorsed the application. We are working with these bodies to ensure that the scheme is a success.
In answer to my noble friend Lady Benjamin, it is not the case that international students are unable to stay on and work. The post-study work route, which was much abused, which allowed all students to stay on and look for work, has been replaced by the graduate level job scheme, and we have made a success of that.
The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, asked whether the cost of the surcharge in relation to the cost of studying was competitive with other countries. Yes, it was addressed in our published impact assessment, where the noble Lord will find the answers to a number of the questions he asked. However, I will make a point of writing to him with a full answer to all the various questions, some of which lie outside the Home Office’s own immediate area of engagement.
I understand that people want to make sure that the Government do not do anything that damages the reputation of this country as a centre of intellectual and academic excellence. I accept that. Speaking as a member of the Government, I remind noble Lords that we have a responsibility to seek to control immigration. All the measures in the Bill are about methods of making sure that people who are in this country are here legally.
There is no difference between us on the benefits that overseas students bring to this country. That is why there is no limit on numbers, and why I will continue to seek to reassure noble Lords on the Bill. I hope that we will have a chance to discuss it before we come back to this issue on Report. Meanwhile, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who participated in a very impressive debate. I thank in particular my three co-sponsors of this amendment, the noble Baronesses, Lady Williams and Lady Warwick, and the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, who so eloquently set out the case which I tried to introduce. There were many other remarkable contributions to this debate, so I will not try to pick out any others.
In a previous debate on this subject—we are getting quite used to having debates on this particular subject—I likened the Minister to St Sebastian, filled with arrows but still smiling. The best pictures of St Sebastian always show him smiling despite the number of arrows that have gone through him. The Minister always handles this with great good temper. I was very pleased on this occasion that he had one supporter, as that removed the sense that we were indulging in an unfair debate.
I hope that we can stop having a war of statistics. The Minister came back again to the point about the UN figures. No one is contesting that the Government will continue to submit to the UN figures in the way that the UN has asked for—that is to say, all people who stay for a year or more. But there is not the slightest difficulty about disaggregating those figures and putting them together again before sending them into the UN. If the Government wanted to, they could leave students out of this Bill completely but, at the same time, continue to make the same returns. I hope that we do not have to come back to that. I think that the war on statistics has gone about as far as it can go. Frankly, citing several times the enormous enthusiasm for Indian students to come to this country sits a little oddly alongside a 49% drop in the past two years. If that is enthusiasm, I do not think we can afford many more victories like that.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn—I mean, that the House be resumed.
Gibraltar
(10 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Butler-Sloss
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the current situation in Gibraltar.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, I am enormously relieved that the House is not adjourning, because I wish to say something about that small country, Gibraltar. Today is Commonwealth Day, a suitable occasion to discuss one of our members with long-standing and continuing problems as a result of the bullying and illegal tactics of its neighbour, Spain.
I am a member of the Anglo-Gibraltar parliamentary group and I have been visiting Gibraltar for over 60 years. In September last year, I attended with other parliamentarians the Gibraltar National Day in Casemates Square. It was an occasion of great enthusiasm, with a vast number of union jacks waved by the crowd who packed the square. At one side, there was an enormous television screen and we had a video speech from the Prime Minister. He pledged that Gibraltar was British and would always be so. I left Gibraltar feeling that our Government were in every way totally behind this small outpost of Britishness. His speech sent a powerful message to Spain.
The Prime Minister was right to do so. As the House knows, Gibraltar has been British for centuries. It also sits at a strategically important point as the gateway between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. It is important to NATO, the EU and wider global interests. Members of the Gibraltar Regiment serve alongside other British troops and also take part in peacekeeping operations authorised by NATO, the EU and the UN. It is the only UK overseas territory to be part of the EU and its membership dates from the moment when the UK joined the EU. It is important to remember that its unique status is defined by Article 355 of the Treaty of Accession. Further, since the implementation of the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, Gibraltarians are, in the same way as other British and Spanish nationals, European citizens.
On 20 January this year, I listened to a Question on Gibraltar responded to by the Minister at the FCO, the Minister here this evening. Her answers showed action by the Government in various ways, such as speaking to the Spanish ambassador, the Spanish Minister for Europe, the Deputy Prime Minister, and our Prime Minister to the Spanish Prime Minister. Putting it bluntly, raising the subject of Gibraltar with Spanish Ministers is great as far as it goes, but where, so far, has it got Gibraltar? During her answers, the Minister said:
“However, our strategy at this stage is very clear: to de-escalate the situation and to try to resolve these matters through diplomatic and political routes”.—[Official Report, 20/1/14; col. 450.]
I pose the question to the Minister—with what success?
I am also somewhat concerned about the use of the word “de-escalate”. I understood the British policy over Gibraltar is to maintain the status quo. The word “de-escalate” means to me a degree of stepping back and may so be understood by Spain. I hope the Minister can reassure me that she did not mean to step back but really intends to preserve the status quo.
According to a Written Answer by an FCO Minister in the other place, Mr Lidington, on 4 March, there had been 496 incursions by Spanish state vessels into Gibraltar territorial waters during 2013 but 77 this year up to 28 February, of which 53 were by the Guardia Civil. There appears to be no let-up as a result of the diplomatic and political efforts of the UK Government.
Last week, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the other place held a meeting in Gibraltar at which the Minister gave evidence. I look forward to reading the report of that committee. If I may respectfully say so, the Foreign Affairs Committee is to be congratulated on going to Gibraltar and seeing on the ground for itself what is happening. I do not know when a Minister of this Government last went to Gibraltar or how often a Minister has been there during the nearly four years of this Government, but it would seem to me that a Minister’s visit to Gibraltar would send a powerful signal to the Spanish Government, who are plainly not yet receiving the message that this Government take the Gibraltar issue truly seriously. The speech of the Prime Minister last September was excellent, but that was given from 10 Downing Street. Regular visits to Gibraltar by Ministers would give an even more powerful message that the Spain-Gibraltar issue was taken genuinely seriously by our Government. We have to demonstrate publicly to Spain and the rest of the EU that it is high on the Government’s agenda, or it will not be taken as an important issue across Europe.
The Chief Minister of Gibraltar in his briefing to me says that the UK is not effective in the diplomatic action it has taken. He recognises the increasingly robust use of language by Ministers, but is understandably frustrated by the present situation. He raises the point that Spain continues to say that relations with Britain are excellent despite Gibraltar. Ought not that assertion be challenged? Not only has the situation not improved on the ground, also the ad hoc talks have not been resumed so no discussions are taking place.
There are a number of obvious issues where Gibraltar is being threatened and damaged by the unlawful and unfair behaviour of Spain, and I will refer to four. The incursions of Spanish state ships, particularly, it would seem to me, those of the Guardia Civil, present the real possibility of an altercation that gets out of hand with consequences. On 5 March, there were in one day nine incursions into British Gibraltar waters, seven of which were by the Guardia Civil and on 6 March again nine incursions, four from the Guardia Civil, one from the Spanish navy and on both days several from the maritime agency.
I am told that the response of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to these incursions is made weeks after the event, whereas one inadvertent incursion of a British ship into Spanish waters was the subject of a complaint by Spain within a few hours—six hours, I believe. Surely we should equal the swift response of Spain. If we do not, there is a real danger that our protests may not be taken seriously if they are so low key.
One of the most important issues is the interruption of free movement within the EU by the obstructions at the Spanish-Gibraltar frontier, obviously under instruction via Cadiz and Madrid. This affects tourists, those who live in Spain and work in Gibraltar and those doing business on both sides of the border. The tourist industry of Gibraltar has been badly affected and I understand that there has been a 44% reduction in visitors and a 26% reduction in the number of non-Gibraltarian cars crossing the frontier. The average waiting time this year for pedestrians is between one hour and an hour and a half. Pedestrians crossing the border into Spain are met by crack Spanish anti-terrorist officers armed with machine guns, for goodness’ sake, for ordinary pedestrians. Vehicles crossing with five available lanes took at the beginning of March an average of 93 minutes, and up to 110 minutes, to cross, and since then an average of 70 minutes to get across.
This is a serious and continuing breach of the right of free movement provided across the whole of the European Union. It is a state of affairs which is entirely unacceptable and should be so seen by all the member states. La Linea and other local areas of southern Spain are also being damaged. There are approximately 10,000 Spanish workers in Gibraltar. There could be more, but I gather that the mayor of La Linea has been told that her town has to suffer for the greater good of Spain.
The third issue is aviation. In 2006 there was a Trilateral Forum for Dialogue which created the Cordoba agreement. This agreement included Gibraltar Airport within the EU law on civil aviation. Spain is now seeking to exclude Gibraltar Airport from the automatic application of EU law. Four measures are affected. The European Parliament is debating the Motions. At the moment, four Spanish amendments are being debated there. Perhaps the most important concerns the EU air passenger rights regulation. The European Parliament debated that first measure last month and voted the Gibraltar exclusion clause out of the legislation. The matter now goes to the European Council. It is crucial that the United Kingdom gets the maximum support to defeat the Spanish efforts. Ordinary people should be enjoying Gibraltar Airport as nationals of the European Union.
The fourth issue is bunkering. The Spanish have now created bunkering facilities and shore facilities at Algeciras and are apparently suggesting that they will prosecute and fine anyone who goes into bunkering facilities in Gibraltar waters. Understandably, this is affecting ship owners who do not want to go in for the expensive and costly procedures that might arise, even though this is clearly unlawful. It is also surely anti-competitive and will have a hugely negative effect on Gibraltar.
The EU Commission sent a team of experts to Gibraltar last September. I understand that the EU Commission wrote to the Spanish Government setting out the findings of the experts and detailing the findings and observations of the delays at the border. It also made recommendations to Spain. Have our Government seen the letter? May we know the recommendations? May we know the response of Spain, how it can be monitored and what further examination can be expected by the EU and the UK?
My last question to the Minister is: how far are our Government seeking support from other members of the EU to put pressure on the Spanish Government over these unacceptable infringements of EU law?
Lord Patten (Con)
My Lords, I am deeply saddened that in Spain, just as in Argentina, prime ministers and presidents alike in deep economic and, therefore, political, trouble seek by diversionary tactics to raise with their electorates alleged threats by foreigners. Indeed, over this weekend, a very senior European foreign affairs figure, with no interest in either the United Kingdom or Spain, told me that it is possible to correlate exactly Spain’s recently renewed activities against Gibraltar with the emergence of the corruption scandals in the Spanish Government not long ago—the two correlate.
Therefore, just as the President of Argentina routinely issues daft and pathetic threats against the Falklands, so in recent years the Prime Minister of Spain has authorised deliberate incursions into Gibraltarian waters, as outlined by the noble and learned Baroness in her commanding speech and the figures that she gave, while political amnesia leads him to forget the ambiguity that Spain actually has two much contested exclaves of its own just across the Straits of Gibraltar on the north African coast at Ceuta and Melilla, surrounded by Morocco. Spain carries out these incursions—these interruptions into the lawful behaviour of people on Gibraltar—in a concerted campaign against the United Kingdom, one of its allies and a fellow NATO member. Indeed, in Spain people are today making bits of kit that go into the Eurofighter and are sent to Lancashire to be assembled there. That is an extraordinary reflection on Spain. I ask my noble friend the Minister: please, what kind of ally is Spain?
Only last week, on Wednesday 5 March, as the noble and learned Baroness has already referred to, in the Foreign Affairs Committee in another place I heard the First Minister of Gibraltar outline what he terms Spain’s “bullying tactics”, ranging from all those lengthy border delays to the breaking and entry into a British diplomatic bag at the frontier on one occasion—in the old days a gunboat would have been sent to deal with that kind of thing—to much more shocking incursions into territorial waters. The worst was on 18 February 2014 by a Spanish state vessel which sailed into British Gibraltar waters and disrupted an important Royal Navy exercise involving some of our special forces personnel from the Royal Navy Submarine Parachute Assistance Group—a disgraceful act. This must stop. I would like to ask my noble friend the Minister: on that occasion was the Spanish ambassador immediately summoned to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and, if not, why not?
By comparison, over the past 15 years, Royal Naval vessels have entered into, or passed through, the waters claimed by Spain around its two north African exclaves, to which I have already referred, on precisely two occasions. The first was by invitation back in 1999, when HMS “Herald” paid a port visit to the Spanish exclave of Melilla in north Africa just across the Straits of Gibraltar. The second was when, in August 2013, HMS “Montrose” exercised its lawful right of passage through the Straits of Gibraltar off Ceuta en route to the eastern Mediterranean. The score of incursions is several thousand to one, as far as I can see from the figures that the noble and learned Baroness gave. This is no beating about the diplomatic bush from me. It seems to me that in this respect we behave impeccably whereas the Spanish behave disgracefully.
Why does the United Kingdom not raise the Gibraltar issue at the next NATO council, for I think these Spanish claims and incursions are the only current examples of belligerence by one NATO member against another in the whole list of 28 member nations, setting aside the long-running saga that followed the Turkish invasion of Cyprus?
Gibraltar’s population wished by an overwhelming majority in the last referendum in 2002 to maintain the status quo. That population of 30,000 is approximately 10 times the size of the population of the Falklands, who feel exactly the same. Therefore, I welcome the apparent strong support of Her Majesty’s Government for the status quo. I just wish that Spain and the Argentine would—I borrow a phrase—grow up and get over it all soon and that their leaders would pay proper and effective attention to their own economies and the appalling unemployment, with the social unrest that follows, that both countries are experiencing, rather than trying to disrupt endlessly the life of a friendly neighbour. What a shocking accusation I am about to make: that is very un-European behaviour.
Lord Hoyle (Lab)
I am so pleased that the noble and learned Baroness has raised the issue of Gibraltar because I am appalled at the behaviour of Spain in relation to it. I declare an interest: I have been to Gibraltar many times; I am a friend of Gibraltar; and I have the freedom of Gibraltar. I am always puzzled as to why our Government do not take a firmer attitude. I want to outline two or three things that are troubling Gibraltar.
One has been referred to by the noble and learned Baroness in relation to the EU air passenger rights. The Spanish Government unilaterally abandoned the trilateral forum for dialogue and are seeking to exclude Gibraltar airport from the application of European law. It is absolutely essential that any EU citizen going to Gibraltar has the same rights as when they use airports anywhere else within Europe. Why should Gibraltar be different? I emphasise what has been asked of the Minister because it is going to be debated by the European Council in June: what are we doing to lobby other people in Europe before that meeting to ensure that they support us in making sure that they remove the exclusion of Gibraltar? That is essential. Are we taking steps? I would be pleased to hear from the Minister when she replies on that matter.
The second matter that I want to talk about affects Gibraltar and us: it is the world’s leading remote gambling jurisdiction. There are 26 licence orders in Gibraltar and I wish to emphasise the effect that they have on the economy. They provide 3,000 jobs and account for 25% of the economy. We are not discussing, and I do not want to go into any detail about, the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Bill. Nevertheless, it could have a disastrous effect upon Gibraltar. It also would not be good for this country as regards remote gambling because many more licences would be applied for. Many people in this country would be affected, and Gibraltar would not be strengthened but weakened. While it could cause us problems here, it would be an absolute disaster for Gibraltar.
I return to another matter that has been raised: the problem at the borders. Delays of up to an hour continue, and longer delays are common, and they have an effect on the economy of Gibraltar. It also affects the thousands of Spanish workers who cross over to and work in Gibraltar. They experience these difficulties daily because of the attitude. What is going to be done about it? Anyone who has been to Gibraltar will know about the number of British citizens residing in Spain who go over the border to shop in Gibraltar—the noble and learned Baroness remarked on that. They come to the supermarkets there but are being prevented from doing so. What are we doing in relation to that?
I move on to the other matter that has been raised about the incursions into British territorial waters. I shall read to noble Lords a Written Question to which I received a reply about the important naval exercise. I asked Her Majesty’s Government,
“what response they have received from the government of Spain about the disruption of the Royal Navy parachute exercise in British territorial waters off Gibraltar”,
on 18 February. The Answer I received from the Minister who is replying tonight was:
“The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs … raised his concerns about illegal incursions”—
I emphasise, “illegal incursions”—
“by Spanish State vessels into British Gibraltar Territorial Waters with the Spanish Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs … on 20 February. We continue to protest formally all illegal incursions”.—[Official Report, 6/3/14; col. WA 331.]
Those concerns were raised on 20 February. These incursions are still occurring. What are we doing about them? As has been said, the UK and Spain are both allies but, sooner or later, there will be an incident in which lives will be lost. I emphasise that.
My time is up but I ask the Minister to say whether, in the light of the reply to my Written Question, what we are doing about these incursions because they are still going on. Surely we have a right to protect not only our interests but the interests of Gibraltar and Gibraltarians who want to remain British.
Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Baroness for tabling this debate and for her speech in which all her experience was brought to bear in a characteristically incisive and robust style. I should make it clear at the outset that I am not an expert on Gibraltar, but last year, as the serious damage done by the level of Spanish border checks became clear, one aspect of the situation reminded me of somewhere that I know well at the other end of the Mediterranean, on the island of Cyprus. In both cases, a historic legacy is causing monumental problems for citizens today, and they are not receiving adequate support from the institutions that ought to be protecting them. The people of Gibraltar are UK citizens and have been for 300 years, and while the bilateral relationship between the UK and Spain is paramount, Gibraltarians have another citizenship as members of the European Union, and it is that issue on which I wish to focus my remarks.
It is an irony that while the EU has become increasingly active in the diplomatic field as a result of the creation of the External Action Service, it has not been sufficiently active in resolving tensions within the EU itself, as Cyprus and Gibraltar graphically demonstrate. To be slightly tongue in cheek, I wonder whether there ought to be an internal action service. A recent report on enlargement from the House of Lords EU Select Committee noted that, when countries join the Union without prior resolution of bilateral disputes, it results in the import of those disputes into the everyday decision-making of the EU. We see that constantly with regard to Gibraltar and Cyprus, and I fear that Serbia and Kosovo may be coming down the track.
There is an inconsistency at the heart of the Commission’s approach to these situations. On the one hand, it quite rightly does not get involved in sovereignty disputes but, on the other, it does not always uphold EU legislation in a neutral way. Despite the agreement made in Cordoba in 2006, for example, recent EU passenger rights legislation excluded Gibraltar. The result of this would have been that not only Gibraltarians but any EU citizen passing through the airport would not have benefited from the passenger rights. The European Parliament has subsequently accepted an amendment tabled by Liberal Democrat MEP Graham Watson, which remedied this situation. The matter is now coming to the Council and I hope that the Minister can say today that the Government will fight hard to keep the amendment in.
On Wednesday of this week there will be further votes at the European Parliament plenary session on the same set of issues—only this time it is about the safer skies initiative on air traffic control. Amendments tabled by the Spanish centre right party at the transport committee have succeeded in removing Gibraltar from this legislation, which is disgraceful. We now have to hope that the Parliament will overcome that and put Gibraltar back in. I would like an assurance from the Minister that the Government are doing everything they can.
I believe that the Commission needs to take its responsibilities much more seriously. After years of problems with Spanish authorities carrying out border checks, the escalation of the problem last autumn has meant that the Commission cannot continue to turn a blind eye to it. I am surprised that the conclusion of its investigation was that no EU law had been breached. It seems a strange interpretation of free movement; perhaps future visits should be unannounced and incognito so that the real picture emerges. It was disgraceful that neither the Commission nor the Spanish Government were prepared to publish the conclusions that had been reached. It took an official access-to-documents request by Sir Graham Watson to ascertain that the Commission had described the intensity of the border checks as “unjustifiable”. Therefore, I ask the Minister to outline what steps the British Government are taking with the Commission to ensure that the rights of the citizens of Gibraltar will be upheld.
What we really need is a lasting settlement to stop these incursions, and there is one other potential course of action regarding the border which the Minister might consider. Is it possible to create a legal position whereby Gibraltar, alone from the rest of the UK, could join the Schengen agreement? If this could be done for Gibraltar, then the border crossings could be removed. It has been done—in reverse, so to speak—in that there are islands which are part of France but which have been excluded from Schengen. As both Britain and Spain are members of NATO, I, too, would be interested in hearing whether the incursions of the navy into Gibraltarian waters have been discussed.
European Commission President Barroso recently said:
“Free movement of people is a fundamental principle of Europe, a fundamental principle of the treaties, indeed one of the core elements that distinguish our Union ... the principle of free movement exists and … is applicable throughout the Union, without discrimination, because we don’t want citizens of first class and citizens of second class in Europe”.
He is quite right to say that, but he now has to act on that with regard to Gibraltar.
Lord Luce (CB)
My Lords, I had the very great privilege of being Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Gibraltar in the late 1990s. I thank my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss for introducing this important debate and at this time.
Of course we all want good relations with Spain. Bilateral relations are important. They are partners in the European Union and our partners in NATO. There is one other responsibility that we also share: we are both former imperial nations and we both inherited responsibilities to certain territories which have decided that they wish to keep their link with their former imperial power. In the case of Spain, it is Melilla and Ceuta; in the case of Britain, examples are the Falklands, Bermuda and Gibraltar. Spain needs to understand and respect that fact.
I believe that relations between the Spanish Government and Gibraltar and our country are worse than at any time since Franco was in power. That is damaging to our relations with Spain and is in sharp contrast to the behaviour of the previous Spanish Government, who had a very sensible policy on regional co-operation in that area. This Spanish Government have a record of incursions, border harassment, ending the negotiating process, undermining Gibraltar’s participation in EU directives, generating an atmosphere of hatred in Andalucía towards Gibraltarians, false accusations of smuggling, money-laundering and so on, and behaving more like Francoists than democrats. Why do they do this? As the noble Lord, Lord Patten, rightly said, we have seen this elsewhere, in the Argentine. It is simply a diversion from their economy, from the corruption cases that they have, from youth unemployment of over 50% and from the separatist movements in their country. If they wanted to win over the Gibraltarians, they would not exactly be bullying them in the way they are doing at present. Who suffers? It is not just Gibraltarians but all the Spaniards in that region. Gibraltar has withstood this pressure enormously well, with a growth rate last year of 8%, but it is asking an awful lot of it.
The British Government’s words of support have been robust but their deeds do not match their words. My experience as a former governor and following a recent visit in the autumn is that we give the wrong signals to Spain. Spain thinks that by bullying it can erode our position in Gibraltar. Psychologically, for a long time our Government—it does not matter of what colour—have felt that they should be timid for fear of upsetting the Spanish. I am not convinced that this Government are giving the kind of defence support that has been asked for by successive governors and commanders of British forces. I understand, for example, that some two or three years ago a fisheries protection vessel was asked for but not given. I understand that the British Government have increased the number of crews to support the patrol ships to enable them to be more active, but I ask the Minister whether we are now able to defend the British Gibraltar territorial waters day and night, every week, if we need to. Will the Minister assure the House that we are providing the naval resources that are required to uphold our sovereignty? It is absolutely crucial for the people of Gibraltar to know this.
Secondly, on the border—others have referred to this—it is important to have a report from the Minister about the progress that has been made by the European monitoring commission. We know that the Gibraltar Government have immediately acted on one recommendation—to tighten up on tobacco regulation. The Spanish Government were asked to end random inspections of vehicles on the border and to introduce risk profiling, making more space for the faster flow of traffic. What progress has been made in the past six months? If none has been made, will the Government ask the Commission to make a return visit to take follow-up action?
On the diplomatic side, we must be more robust and immediately respond and protest when incursions are made. On fishing, I am glad to note that the Gibraltar Government have introduced new legislation to do with conservation and proper regulation. On the question of dialogue, the Foreign Secretary quite rightly proposed ad hoc talks. What is the Spanish reaction? I have heard nothing from Spain on this issue.
Others have made many references to the European Union. We must fight our corner in terms of efforts by Spain to exclude Gibraltar from EU directives such as those on aviation.
In short, first, we must defend the Gibraltarians by giving full support to our governor, Sir James Dutton, and our excellent Chief Minister, Fabian Picardo; secondly, we must make sure that Spain understands our determination; and, thirdly, we must work to persuade the Spanish Government that, by returning to the previous policy of regional co-operation, the Spanish people, as well as the Gibraltarians, will benefit and Anglo-Spanish relations will improve.
Baroness Hooper (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to be able to join in this debate, so brilliantly and comprehensively opened by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss.
For those of us who have campaigned on behalf of Gibraltar in your Lordships’ House over the years—and I am thinking nostalgically of the late Lord Boyd-Carpenter, Lord Bethell and Lord Merrivale in particular—as well as others who have participated in the debate this evening, it is always good to have an injection of new blood, as it were, and the noble and learned Baroness speaks with great authority from her personal experience and involvement in Gibraltar.
I am a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Gibraltar Group, and I am also president of the Friends of Gibraltar, which operates outside Parliament. However, I am also a member of the all-party group for Spain, and I find nothing incompatible about that, as I have many friends in Spain and go there often. I suspect that that is true of others here this evening and it is certainly true of many of my friends in Gibraltar, many of whom have close links with Spain and some of whom also have homes in Spain.
Given that the people of Gibraltar have made their views clear in the referendum, and given that the British Government have made it equally clear that they will not do anything against the wishes of the people of Gibraltar, it seems perverse of the Spanish Government to take actions now that further antagonise Gibraltarians, rather than seek to win hearts and minds. That is why I welcome the initiative coming from the people of Gibraltar, together with their neighbours in the campo. They have formed a cross-frontier group composed of business representatives and union activists from both sides of the border. I understand that its visit to Brussels at the end of February to protest at the illegal and disproportionate queues at the frontier had considerable impact on Members of the European Parliament, Commissioners and other Commission officials as well as the media.
Can the Minister comment on this development and the ways in which the group can continue to present evidence to relevant groups and commission bodies? Is this being encouraged by our Government? Can she say how this ties in with the recent visits made by the Chief Minister to both Brussels and Strasbourg? He, as ever, was assiduous and articulate in making the best possible case for Gibraltar. Most of all, can she tell us about the follow-up to the visit made by the European Union team of experts last September, which has already been referred to by every person speaking in the debate? The team inspected the problem on the spot, made recommendations to ease the border restrictions and, since then, nothing has been heard. Is there any evidence that Spain has complied with the recommendations? How is it being monitored—by the European Union itself, or HMG? What more can the Government do in this respect? The noble Lord, Lord Luce, spelt out the course of action that the British Government could take on this and many other issues far better than I can. Indeed, the many other issues affecting Gibraltar have also been covered very well in this debate, so I will not repeat them.
The present impasse on the border is a sad, unnecessary and incomprehensible state of affairs that has gone on for far too long. I can only hope that the patience of the good people of Gibraltar will last. I have a feeling that it will and that they will continue to prosper in spite of that impasse.
Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, for introducing the debate tonight. Whether we like it or not, Spain’s insistence on its rights over Gibraltarian territory is not new and is not likely to change. Before Christmas, as many noble Lords have indicated, there was a significant increase in the volume of noise emitted by Spain in relation to its ongoing claim over the island of Gibraltar.
Ever since the treaty of Utrecht in 1713 Gibraltar has been associated with the UK, but Spain has never given up its rights over the land. Since that time tensions between the UK and Spain over Gibraltar have blown hot and cold. However, what has become clear, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Patten, is that there seems to be a direct correlation between Spain’s appetite to turn up the heat on its claim over the island that seems to coincide directly with difficult situations for the Spanish Government domestically. Seeking an outside distraction is the oldest trick in the book when the Government are up against difficulties.
The difficulties are evident. In January, official Spanish statistics confirmed that the country’s unemployment rate has risen to above 26%, with the total number of unemployed now at 5.9 million. With austerity measures continuing and corruption scandals being exposed, in addition to a move to restrict abortion, it is no wonder that Spain’s ruling Partido Popular has lost its lead in the opinion polls to the Spanish socialists. Maybe that is what this is all about. This sabre rattling is not the way to resolve international conflicts, nor does it detract from its internal problems. It should be made absolutely clear that Spain cannot advance its position on sovereignty by unlawful incursions, breaking diplomatic conventions and other aggressive methods and manoeuvres. The UK should respect the rights of the 30,000 Gibraltarians who time and again—and most recently in referendums in 1967 and 2002—have maintained their preference for retaining their particular relationship with the UK.
In 2000, a political declaration of unity was signed by all living present and past members of the Gibraltar Parliament. In essence, the declaration stated that the people of Gibraltar would never compromise, give up or trade their sovereignty or their right to self-determination. It said that Gibraltar wanted good, neighbourly European relations with Spain; it belonged to the people of Gibraltar; and it was neither Spain’s to claim nor Britain’s to give away. Unilateral threats are not the way to sort out problems. Spain is aware of the sensitivities of an issue such as Gibraltar where there is an historic claim to land adjacent to another country. Ceuta and Melilla, which have been mentioned before, are enclaves that Spain has in the north of Morocco over which Morocco claims sovereignty rights. Is it not interesting that there is a striking similarity between Spain’s relationship with Ceuta and Melilla and the UK’s with Gibraltar? Both are military and naval bases dominated by fortified mountains, and both contain populations which are racially mixed but united in their fervent loyalty to a Crown and country whose capital lies hundreds of miles away.
However, keeping a strong relationship with Spain is imperative. Spain is one of our strongest allies, both in the EU and in NATO. One million British people live there and 14 million citizens from the UK visit the country every year. I know from my time in the European Parliament that Spain was an ally on which we could rely on a number of crucial issues of common interest in the European Union.
The UK must not be bullied. Illegal incursions into British Gibraltar territorial waters are not uncommon and have been increasing of late—almost 500 in 2013 and more than 77 so far this year. Can the Minister state whether the Spanish ambassador has been summoned to account for its incursions into Gibraltar waters this year? Can she indicate the last time a UK Minister had direct contact with a Spanish Minister on this issue? When was the last time a Minister visited Gibraltar in an official capacity? Can the Minister elaborate on whether there are any signs of a positive response from the Spanish Government?
Shadow Minister for Europe, Gareth Thomas, and my noble friend Lord West have recently asked the Foreign Secretary whether he would consider reinforcing the Gibraltar garrison, in particular its maritime security capability. Can the Minister give an indication as to whether this has been done?
Can the Minister update the House on the latest situation with delays at the border, including whether Spain has responded to the recommendations of the Commission? We do not know what the recommendations are. Have the UK Government had any luck in persuading the Commission to share the correspondence it has had with the Spanish Government on this issue?
The Spanish Government pulled out of the trilateral forum in 2011. Does the Minister see any sign of the Spanish accepting the need to return once again to the use of that sensible diplomatic channel for discussions? Can she explain what the Spanish Government’s response is to the reiteration of the proposals by the Secretary of State for ad hoc talks involving all relevant parties?
The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, for securing this debate and for the comprehensive way in which she outlined the many challenges that the Government of Gibraltar face. I shall try to deal with some of her specific questions. I also thank all noble Lords for their contributions, especially the noble Lord, Lord Luce, whose expertise and opinion on this matter I hugely respect.
Recent months have seen a number of further unhelpful moves by Spain to advance its claims towards Gibraltar, in particular incursions into British Gibraltar territorial waters and the introduction of unreasonable and illegal delays at the border. However, the position of the British Government is unequivocal: Gibraltar and its waters are sovereign British territory. They will remain so for as long as the people of Gibraltar wish them to be and we will continue to respond robustly, taking whatever action is necessary, to safeguard Gibraltar, its people and its economy.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, for her outline of the situation. Our position on the sovereignty of Gibraltar is clear and unchanged: we will protect the right of the people of Gibraltar to determine their political future. The UK will never enter into arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of another state against their wishes. Furthermore, the UK will not enter into any process of sovereignty negotiations with which Gibraltar is not content. I hope those comments are clear and unequivocal.
Gibraltar’s constitution reflects the principle that all peoples have the right of self-determination. The realisation of this right must be promoted and respected in conformity with the provisions of the charter of the United Nations and any other applicable international treaties. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Luce, that the British Government are confident of UK sovereignty over the whole of Gibraltar, including British Gibraltar territorial waters.
The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and other noble Lords asked what action had been taken and whether it could have been stronger. We have taken robust action. The Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have called their Spanish counterparts and we have summoned the Spanish ambassador on a number of occasions. We have made our concerns very clear and have acted in close concert with the Government of Gibraltar. We are strongly committed to a diplomatic solution and we do not believe that tit-for-tat escalation is in anyone’s interest. For example, incursions by the Guardia Civil which involved photography, filming and the circling of ships have been provocative actions and the United Kingdom has raised these at the highest level with the Spanish Government. Indeed, the Prime Minister raised the issue, for example, of border delays with President Barroso in August last year which led to the Commission sending a border monitoring mission in September. The Prime Minister again raised our concerns with Barroso in December last year.
A number of noble Lords, including my noble friend Lady Scott, asked about EU aviation legislation. We cannot accept a return to the pre-2006 practice of suspending Gibraltar Airport from EU aviation measures. We have raised this with the Spanish Government and the European Commission. We believe that the EU treaties are clear that Gibraltar should be included in EU aviation legislation. We have made our position on this clear to the Spanish Government and the Commission. Officials are working with UK MEPs’ offices to ensure that amendments in upcoming EU aviation legislation that would seek to suspend the application to Gibraltar Airport are properly responded to.
The noble Lord, Lord Luce, asked about the position of the Royal Navy. Under the Gibraltar constitution, the Royal Gibraltar Police is tasked with the enforcement of Gibraltar law in British Gibraltar territorial waters. The main tasks of the Royal Navy Gibraltar Squadron are to protect visiting warships and to uphold British sovereignty against unlawful incursions by other state vessels such as the Spanish Guardia Civil. We believe that differences with Spain concerning the water should be resolved by diplomatic and political means, not naval confrontation. Continued escalation is in no one’s interest, but what I say in terms of de-escalation in no way steps back from our commitment.
Lord Luce
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister, but perhaps I may pass on one piece of experience from my time. There was a serious fishing dispute and a large number of incursions were being made. The situation drifted and got worse and worse. It was only when at the last moment a Spanish vessel was detained and 14 Spanish people on board were arrested that the dispute was brought to an end. All I am asking for is the robust defence of our sovereignty in those waters.
Baroness Warsi
The noble Lord makes an incredibly important point. In response to the increased number of maritime incursions, the Ministry of Defence has deployed additional personnel to Gibraltar to enhance the response capability and resilience of the Royal Navy Gibraltar Squadron. Royal Navy ships will continue to visit Gibraltar regularly in relation to operational and training activities, reflecting its utility as a permanent joint operating base. All elements of the situation, including the maritime security capability available to the Royal Navy Gibraltar Squadron, are kept under review. Should it be necessary, the Ministry of Defence will provide additional assets to the squadron and augment our broader maritime posture as necessary. That issue was also raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan.
My noble friend Lady Hooper is right to say that the border delays are unacceptable and damaging to both the Government of Gibraltar and, indeed, to Spain. The Commission’s letter to Spain following its border mission last September made clear that the intensity of Spanish checks was unjustified. The Commission made recommendations to both sides to improve the flow of people and traffic, and we remain confident that Spain has acted and continues to act unlawfully. We are providing evidence of that to the Commission. The Commission undertook to review the situation after six months following its border mission, and the review will take place at the end of this month. We are providing evidence of continuing border delays in preparation for that review.
My noble friend Lord Patten specifically asked about the issue of the opening of a diplomatic bag. We did indeed summon the Spanish ambassador and subsequently received assurances that it would not happen again, and to date it has not. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, asked about ministerial visits, as did a number of other noble Lords. There have been several ministerial visits to Gibraltar since 2010, the last one having been made in December last year by the Minister for the Armed Forces, and of course their Royal Highnesses the Earl and Countess of Wessex paid a highly successful visit in 2012. Those visits will continue.
I hear what my noble friend Lord Patten had to say in his description of Spain’s behaviour, but as the noble Baroness on the Front Bench opposite also said, Spain is of course still a valued partner in both NATO and the EU. It is in the interests of both our countries and indeed in the interests of Gibraltar for that co-operation to continue. Spain says that it has an excellent relationship with the UK, but it is difficult to see how Spain’s escalation of the dispute over Gibraltar is not going to impact on the wider bilateral relationship. That is a point that we have made to Spain on numerous occasions and we will continue to pursue solutions at this stage through political and diplomatic means.
However, there should be no doubt of our commitment to the people of Gibraltar. Their wishes and their rights are paramount and we will continue to stand up for them. To achieve a solution it is our long-term aim, shared by the Government of Gibraltar, to return to the trilateral forum referred to by the noble Baroness, from which the current Spanish Government withdrew on taking office in December 2011. In the interim we have reiterated to the Spanish Government the Foreign Secretary’s proposal which he made in April 2012 to hold ad hoc talks involving all the relevant parties. We welcome the interest that was shown in that proposal and urge all parties to meet around the negotiating table and engage in constructive dialogue.
We have heard in the debate about a number of politically motivated actions taken by Spain to try to pressurise Britain and Gibraltar. We have also heard that the Government have taken robust action in response, and we will continue to do so. But we are also committed to trying to tackle the underlying tensions through a process of dialogue that will give the people of Gibraltar a voice. As we enter negotiations it is particularly important that all sides are seen to be taking positive action. We welcomed the decision by the European Commission to send a border monitoring mission to Gibraltar in September last year, but these missions will be successful only if the follow-up work, such as implementation of the recommendations that were made by the mission, is done in the same way that the Government of Gibraltar are doing.
At the heart of this issue is the right of the people of Gibraltar to determine their own future. The current constitution of Gibraltar already includes the assurance that the UK will never enter into arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of another state against their wishes. Furthermore, this Government have repeated the assurances given by the previous Government that the UK will not enter into a process of sovereignty negotiations with which Gibraltar is not content. For as long as the people of Gibraltar wish to retain British sovereignty, we will continue to work with their elected representatives to ensure that they can pursue their legitimate interests unhindered by unreasonable and illegal actions by any nation, but of course most recently by Spain. However, it is also clear that co-operation between Gibraltar and Spain offers many benefits to people on both sides of the border. Fostering that co-operation remains in everyone’s interests, and with the support of the Government of Gibraltar, remains our long-term aim too.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
Before the Minister sits down, will she agree to take away the question of bunkering, with which she has not dealt? Unfortunately, for lack of time, I did not really explain it, but the threat by Spain is to fine and punish by prosecution any of the big four groups that have their bunker supplies in Gibraltar waters. Spain is not of course suggesting fining in Algeciras, where they also have facilities, but is saying that it will fine and prosecute any of those that get their bunkering supplies in Gibraltar. What are the Government going to do about that? If we are not careful, we are going to put off the four major companies from using the bunker facilities in Gibraltar.
Baroness Warsi
I will certainly take that back. I will write to the noble and learned Baroness and put a copy of the letter in the Library.
Immigration Bill
(10 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, in moving Amendment 50, I will speak also to the other amendments in my name and those of my noble friends Lord Rosser and Lord Stevenson and the noble Lord, Lord Best, and our clause stand part debate.
It is already the case that local authority housing associations cannot let to illegal migrants. We agree with the principle of making it more difficult for illegal migrants to rent property but we have very serious concerns about the workability, effectiveness and possible unintended consequences of this clause. We want legislation that works. We do not want legislation that is ineffective and puts unnecessary, onerous and disproportionate restrictions and obligations on UK citizens but does not impact on the real issue.
We have tabled a number of amendments. As I said, the first is a clause stand part debate on Clause 15 to ensure a general discussion on all these parts of the Bill. Amendments 50 and 51 would put in legislation the principle of a pilot for these provisions. Amendment 56C would require the Government to make landlords aware of the code of practice. Amendments 55T and 56A would implement the recommendations of the DPRC to require that the code of practice be made by order, and Amendment 56E would question the dehybridisation provision.
We have a number of other groups—I think it is three—on the housing issue. It might be helpful if I address the principal points in this debate and comment only briefly on the other groups. My noble friend Lord Stevenson has already addressed concerns about how these proposals will impact on students. I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I speak a little longer on this group of amendments, but I do not intend to speak on the other groups of amendments, other than perhaps a very brief sentence or comment. So I will speak slightly longer than I would normally.
I have found it difficult to find anybody who is in favour of this clause who thinks that it will work in practice. The evidence sessions in the other place should have given the Government cause to pause and reconsider, given the views expressed. Opposition to these measures comes from a whole range of organisations that have to deal with the consequences, from Crisis and Shelter, which deal with housing for some of the most vulnerable in society, to the organisations that represent landlords.
The Residential Landlords Association survey identified opposition from 82% of its members. Carolyn Uphill, chairman of the National Landlords Association, said in her evidence to the House of Commons committee:
“It is going to impose an administrative burden on landlords who are not experts in immigration … The principle of checking identity is not so much the worry as the logistics of how that is done and understanding the documentation”.
In the same evidence session, Richard Jones, policy director of the Residential Landlords Association, said that,
“we think that the Bill and its provisions are not workable and will not be effective in achieving the objectives set out”.—[Official Report, Commons, Immigration Bill Committee, 29/10/13; col. 43.]
They are not questioning the principle, just whether the provisions are workable for those who have to implement them. I am still unclear whether the Government have fully assessed all the implications of this clause, including the unintended consequences.
In its most recent report on the work of the UK Border Agency, this time last year, the Home Affairs Select Committee said:
“The proposed new housing measures in the Immigration Bill must not produce a bonanza for unscrupulous landlords who already operate outside the law”.
The landlords’ organisations are not complaining about the principle of letting only to those who are legally in the country but about the workability of the measure, whether it places unfair and unreasonable demands on landlords to enforce it and whether it will also cause significant problems and hardship to many others seeking to rent a home.
I understand the concerns that have been raised by landlords because in effect this clause outsources immigration responsibilities to others, including landlords. The Government’s code of practice for landlords—I am grateful to the Minister for supplying it so we could look at it—is supposed to provide safeguards and reassurances when it comes to implementation. I wish it had done so but I am not reassured. I have read through the guidance in the code of practice and it seems to raise as many questions as it seeks to address—the issues have already been raised. It states that landlords should make checks on,
“person(s) with whom you are entering into a contractual agreement … and any adult persons who will occupy the premises under that agreement”.
Can the Minister be precise about exactly who is included in this? The code states that,
“the tenant who is sub-letting will be the responsible landlord for the purposes of this scheme”.
But how will they be made aware of this? Will there not be a loophole for unscrupulous landlords who collect rent via one tenant, thereby evading their responsibilities should there be further sublets? What about the tenant who allows guests to stay, even long term? Will they or will the landlord be responsible? It is not difficult to imagine how those who are not here legally could stay with or even rent from friends without the landlord ever knowing.
The draft code of practice also lists a number of documents which are acceptable—if the Minister reads the list, he will find that there is a mistake in at least one. This includes a passport or a birth certificate, but also a letter from the police confirming that the person has had their documents stolen. Even a UK firearms licence would be acceptable proof to a landlord that a person can rent. A number of documents are listed, many of which will not be familiar to most landlords. How will landlords be able to familiarise themselves with, and understand and recognise, all those documents, including how genuine they are? I think that the Government are trying to be helpful in broadening the number of documents, but what they have done in effect is cause even greater potential for confusion.
One of the Government’s retorts to these concerns has been to say that under employment rules businesses already check a person’s status and do so without difficulty. It is misleading to suggest that businesses, even very small businesses, which are required to undertake employment checks operate on a scale that is comparable to private landlords, some of whom may let only one property—it might even be just a room in a property. Seventy-eight per cent of landlords in the private rented sector own just one property that they rent out.
As we know, employers can make mistakes when acting with the best of intentions. The noble Lord’s former ministerial colleague, Mark Harper, made such a mistake when he found that he was employing a domestic cleaner who was an illegal migrant. He has made it clear that he did his best to undertake the appropriate checks required. He thought that he had done so, but he had made mistakes. Mark Harper was very clear: he had checked his cleaner’s passport; he had checked the documentation—the letter from the Home Office; and he copied them at the time. But more than six years later, when he was taking this Bill through the other place and quite reasonably and responsibly wanted to double-check the information that he had been given, he could not find it, and his cleaner was unable to provide her copies. It was only then, after checking with immigration officials through his private office, that he found that the information that he had been given but could not find was incorrect.
How many landlords can be confident that if they make a similar mistake, they will be believed and not face the penalties and fine? The danger is that some landlords will understandably play safe and ask everyone for their passport, thereby disadvantaging all those without a passport or without immediate access to it. In Mark Harper’s case, the passport and the letter from the Home Office were fake or perhaps belonged to someone else. How many landlords are going to worry about making a mistake and, in some cases, not rent out their room or property at all?
I am also unclear about enforcement. How will it be established that a landlord has acted in breach of their duty and how will the fine be collected? What provisions will be made for landlords who repeatedly and deliberately break the law but pay the fine each time—those unscrupulous landlords whom we want to discourage while encouraging responsible ones? What will be considered sufficient checks, as referred to in the legislation? If we look at what excuses landlords are allowed to use to avoid action being taken against them, we see that they include notifying the Home Office of the contravention as soon as possible, but could this lead to landlords using notification as a shield and then the Home Office being overwhelmed by the number of inquiries that they might receive? Another excuse is based on the premise of landlords understanding the period for which the immigration document is valid or for how long a person has been granted leave, but that is not always straightforward and it can be very difficult to understand that documentation. Under Clause 27, the code of practice, which should set out all the detail about this, is to be laid before Parliament. We have seen the draft and, given that many questions remain, we and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee think that that is insufficient and that the code should benefit from parliamentary scrutiny. That is why we have tabled Amendment 55T to give effect to that.
Lord Best (CB)
My Lords, there are a number of amendments in my name to this part of the Bill but I begin by supporting Amendments 50 and 51, introduced so well by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon. All the amendments that I support relate to the proposals in the Bill for landlords to have responsibility for checking the immigration status of their tenants. I declare my interests in social housing and the private rented sector, as in the register. I have every sympathy with the proposition that the relevant clauses should not stand part of the Bill but I recognise that there are other factors here that mean that the Government will not be persuaded to drop this measure altogether. In the amendments in my name I am therefore concentrating on ways in which its impact can be moderated.
Moreover, I have had the benefit of a very useful meeting with the Ministers—the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and the Minister for Immigration in the other place, James Brokenshire—at which I and colleagues representing both tenants and landlords were able to clarify a number of points. Indeed, my colleagues from the Residential Landlords Association, Crisis, the National Housing Federation, the British Property Federation and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation commended Ministers and civil servants on a number of concessions and clarifications that have allayed some of their fears. Nevertheless, it remains the case that, as I set out at Second Reading and as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, has emphasised, this new burden on landlords is likely to have a number of unfortunate consequences.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord in full flow; I was waiting for a point at which I could come in. I just want to clarify whether he is speaking to amendments in this group; I do not think that it contains any in his name.
Baroness Hamwee
Fine. I thought that the noble Lord was talking to his own amendments that come later on. I am so sorry.
Lord Best
I shall come to them in due course.
The average private landlord will be keen to avoid committing the new offence of allocating a tenancy to someone who is not meant to be in this country, and to avoid being fined up to £3,000. They will want to play safe and not take anyone as a tenant who might just possibly turn out to be an illegal immigrant.
It will not be an offence not to check the status of a potential tenant; it will be an offence not to have checked only if it is subsequently discovered that the tenant is here illegally. So if someone is obviously not an immigrant, there is no need to go through the process of checking them out. How much easier, therefore, to turn away anyone with the appearance of being foreign, including perfectly legitimate applicants, using any number of excuses—most often that the property has already been let. Despite the guidance being prepared by the Home Office on how landlords can avoid acting in a discriminatory way, in those markets of high demand—London, much of southern England and hotspots everywhere—I fear that the Bill could mean that anyone who could remotely be thought to be a migrant will find it very tough to get decent rented accommodation. Frankly, it is difficult enough already for anyone who is not a young UK professional to persuade landlords to take them on. Remember that there are over 1.5 million private landlords, 78% of whom, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said, own just one property; they are amateurs and they are going to be highly risk-averse.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 56, which is tabled in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Drumadoon, who regrets that he cannot be in place. I have put my name to the amendment. I should make it clear that the matter with which it deals was drawn to our attention by the Law Society of Scotland. Just to set the background, it raises a short point in relation to Clause 28, the discrimination clause, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, referred. That clause requires the Secretary of State to issue a code of practice with a view to ensuring that landlords or agents do not breach the provisions of the Equality Act 2010 so far as it is related to race when performing the obligations imposed on them by Chapter 1 of Part 3.
Clause 28(3) provides that:
“Before issuing the code (or a revised code) the Secretary of State must consult … the Commission for Equality and Human Rights … the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland”.
This amendment adds the Scottish Human Rights Commission to that list.
The reasoning behind the proposal can be put very shortly. It is that while Chapter 1, with which the code will be concerned, can be said to fall under the broad heading of immigration, which is a reserved matter for the Home Office, it also involves the devolved area of tenancies in relation to both social housing and private lettings between landlord and tenant. This is a sensitive area where the Article 8 right to family life and to respect for the person’s home is involved. It could also be argued that there is an Article 1, Protocol 1, right with regard to the landlord since he is having to take decisions about his own property.
The reference in Clause 28(3)(c) to,
“such persons representing the interests of landlords and tenants as the Secretary of State considers appropriate”,
suggests that there is room for adding something to the two particular bodies which are mentioned in the list set out in the clause. But it is suggested that, in order to complete the protection for the tenant’s rights under a devolved system, the inclusion of the Scottish Human Rights Commission would be appropriate. In a sense, it is a precautionary proposal because one has to be careful with regard both to the devolved system and to the risk of entrenching on the human rights of either party, which could give rise to very unfortunate consequences. The safer course, I respectfully suggest, is to include the Scottish Human Rights Commission so that it can offer its advice on the drafting of the code.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, I am sorry that prior engagements meant that I missed part of the Second Reading debate and could not speak then on this important Bill, which I support. I start by thanking my noble friend the Minister for the briefing he kindly provided on the residential tenancy provisions. I thank noble Lords opposite for initiating a debate on Clause 15, as it gives me the opportunity to probe the Government’s intentions and the “workability” of the provisions, to quote the noble Baroness.
I come at the subject as a business person, although I should declare an interest as the part-owner of a son’s flat which is currently let while he works out of London. We are asking the landlord community, nearly 2 million of us, to be part of the enforcement service for immigration. This is a new burden, as the noble Lord, Lord Best, has said. I understand that, for 62% of landlords, the required documentation is already available to satisfy the provisions. But that leaves a lot of people burdened for the first time, and required to keep copies and records that they do not have to worry about at present. I suspect that many will not know about the new rules and that they risk a civil penalty—£1,000 for the first offence, £3,000 thereafter— if they let to somebody whose papers are not in order.
I have a fear that the immigration authorities, in order to hit targets, could turn their attention to the easy task of cracking down on landlords who make a mistake, rather than the labyrinthine task of fighting illegal immigrants through the courts. Can my noble friend give landlords, especially small landlords who do not use expensive letting agencies, some comfort on these issues?
This is an important Bill, as I have said, and it is clearly essential that the new provisions are communicated really well. I have two thoughts on this and would be glad to hear the Minister’s reactions before we accept the provisions on landlords in Clause 15 and subsequent clauses. One is to use the web properly. We should place on gov.uk, in one user-friendly place, all the new rules for landlords, wherever they are set out, including the new online checking resource that is planned; briefing on the new biometric residence permits, which will ease landlords’ task of identification; the contact details for the phone inquiry line; and the 48-hour e-mail immigration checking service, which I agree will need to be adequately staffed, as the noble Lord, Lord Best, has said.
A different version could also be provided for tenants, including, perhaps—having listened to earlier debates—students, from whom I believe the paperwork requirements may be relatively light. It would be good for all of those people to know what the rules are and be able to check them in a simple place on the web. With modern techniques, prospective tenants could easily translate this briefing using an online app, obviating the need for expensive advice and lawyers.
Secondly, we should ask the landlords’ associations to prepare model clauses on the new immigration controls to be added to their standard shorthold lease. This would make it less likely that the new requirements were overlooked and the tenant would have to make an undertaking, which would be helpful, for example, in avoiding illegal sub-letting.
Finally, I would like to understand the Government’s intentions on timing, a point which links to Amendment 51 on a possible pilot. I believe that the Government plan to trial the new arrangements in a specific area or areas, which is an excellent idea that I would like to see applied to more areas of regulation. However, what would the timetable look like, and will the Government, as suggested by the noble Lords opposite, feel able to feed back to this House what they have learnt before the new system goes nationwide?
As a supporter of the Bill I am very keen that it should work well and not lead to an adverse reaction by small landlords or a reduction in available accommodation because people do not want to risk a fine or the hassle involved in the new scheme. The money-laundering laws were no doubt good in intent, but the repetitive bureaucracy they have introduced into every aspect of asset purchase certainly comes at a cost which affects UK productivity. I am keen to know whether we have learnt from this experience in establishing this important new regime for landlords.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, we have a number of amendments in this group: Amendments 56B, 56D, 56G, 87A and 89. As other noble Lords have said, there must be a pilot. I was glad to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, say that she has come to the view that it should be a single pilot. However, like her, I agree that there is a world of difference between a pilot and phasing the rollout. I have a number of probing amendments in this group and some in later groups. I will deal with particular concerns amendment by amendment rather than speaking generally to the clause stand part.
On the pilot issue, in my mind this is not probing but something that has to happen, and in a single area. We are not talking about different housing markets; all noble Lords who spoke about this are concerned about what I wrote down as “bureaucracy”, although “administrative burden” is the politer way of putting it, is it not? Concerns were also expressed about discrimination and how landlords, tenants, agents, occupants—people who are not tenants in the sense in which we normally technically use that term, but who are actually tenants under the Bill as they are defined—would cope. We are also concerned about tenants and occupants who have a right to be in this country and to rent. “Workability” was the term used, which is very much in my mind. I will not take up the Committee’s time by quoting from evidence to the Public Bill Committee in the Commons, but I, like others, was struck by the sheer number of small landlords there are in this country.
We talked about a pilot, and that pilot needs to be assessed. Of course the public response to a pilot will be the overall assessment, but it occurred to me that we need a more rigorous critique, being clear and careful about the factors to be assessed and evaluated. Our Amendment 56G would require a report before the provisions come into force about the matters which should be assessed and the basis for evaluating their assessment. I have not attempted to spell those out at this point; that is a piece of work that needs to be quite careful and detailed, to be subject to discussion and to be discussed. I have said that a report should be laid before Parliament by your Lordships. I also agree that the code, which must seek to ensure against discrimination, should have parliamentary involvement.
On Amendment 56B, the dangers of discrimination are inherent—that is an issue in itself—also because of the implications for those who are entitled to be in the country and to rent, as well as for everybody else.
Your Lordships will understand that with a name like Hamwee and coming from the background that I do, I knew people whose names were not familiar to landlords when people of my generation were seeking to rent. Unlike the experience of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, when they turned up on the doorstep they were greeted with, “Oh gosh, you’re white!” That is just as bad a discrimination, of course.
I think that there should be a review following the pilot—that may be implicit in Clause 28, but I think that we should say so—and parliamentary process for each revision. Our Amendments 56B, 87A and 89 are not just little wrinkles at the end of the Bill but amount to a substantive amendment to require clear stages to the process. I can also see that we should consider a mechanism for Parliament requiring a view if that is not a review forthcoming from the Home Office, although I thought of that only yesterday.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, I support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon and with regard to clause stand part. I made clear my opposition to this part of the Bill at Second Reading on the grounds of its impact both on migrants and on black and minority ethnic citizens. I raised the concerns in the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and we returned to the issue in our second legislative scrutiny report in which we welcomed,
“the Government’s indication that the Secretary of State, when exercising her residual discretion to grant permission to occupy premises under a residential tenancy agreement, will take into account the best interests of any child involved, in accordance with the duty in s. 55”.
By acknowledging the relevance of Section 55 in this context, this goes beyond the general indication already given by the Government, welcomed in our first report, that,
“nothing in the Bill is intended to change or derogate in any way from the children duty in s. 55”.
The committee said:
“However, we remain concerned about whether it will be sufficiently clear to front-line decision-makers that the s. 55 duty applies to significant functions such as the Secretary of State’s discretion to grant permission to occupy residential premises. Under s. 55(3) of the 2009 Act, a person exercising any of the Secretary of State’s functions in relation to immigration, nationality and asylum must, in exercising the function, have regard to any guidance given by the Secretary of State. We recommend that the Secretary of State issue new guidance specifically on the s. 55 duty, explaining clearly to front-line decision-makers exactly how that statutory duty applies in relation to functions conferred by or by virtue of this Bill”.
I invite the Minister to give that assurance.
With regard to piloting, the subject of Amendments 50 and 51, at Second Reading I asked what steps would be taken to monitor the impact from the equalities and human rights perspective. The Minister kindly referred to this question in his written response on Second Reading issues, so I eagerly looked for an answer first in the commentary and then in the factsheet to which we were referred for answers, but answer came there none. Therefore, I would be grateful for an answer this evening on the record.
I welcome the fact that the draft code of practice was published with the factsheet, but given the 36 pages of the code of practice plus 16 pages of the anti-discrimination code, I could not help but wonder how many landlords are going to read, learn and inwardly digest all the contents of those codes? I fear that, even without any discriminatory intention, landlords—this point has already been made by, for example, the noble Lord, Lord Best—will simply avoid letting to anyone who looks or sounds like a foreigner. This is in the context of a housing market where we know that, particularly in London, landlords are getting increasingly selective about whom they will rent to. For example, housing benefit claimants are finding it increasingly difficult to get private lettings. As has already been said, the danger is that people are then pushed into having to rent from rogue landlords. The Migrants’ Rights Network raises particular concerns about women who may have insecure immigration status and how this provision could make them very vulnerable to physical or sexual exploitation.
At Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, asked about a possible exemption for small landlords. The written response given afterwards was that the Government did not consider this to be appropriate. I realised only the other day that lodgers are included in this provision. This will mean that people subjected to the bedroom tax who are taking in lodgers because they want to stay in their home and they cannot afford to pay their rent because their benefit is being cut will be treated as landlords. These people never wanted to be landlords; they have been pushed into it. The noble Lord, Lord Best, talked about amateurs. These really are amateurs. Are we really saying that someone who has been subjected to the bedroom tax could be fined up to £3,000 if they get this wrong? It is appalling. I hope that at the very least the Government will think again about lodgers. Like my noble friend, I would prefer it if we could remove this nasty clause from the Bill altogether but, if not, at the very least we need firm assurances that there will be a genuine pilot from which lessons will be learnt and which will monitor the equalities and human rights impact.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, I, too, wish to put on record my concerns about the proposed use of landlords as unpaid immigration officials. My preferred option, too, would be for the Government to drop Clause 15 altogether, although I do not expect the Minister to be thrilled at that idea. Therefore, as a second option, I would very much support a single pilot, which is evaluated and has an evaluation report put before Parliament before—this is very important—any attempt is made to roll out these provisions beyond that single pilot. That is, as others have said, totally different from what the Government are currently proposing.
I, too, do not believe that the system will work and it is therefore better to find that out before it happens all over the country. As other noble Lords have said, landlords will find ways to avoid entering into a tenancy agreement with anyone who may not have a legitimate right to remain and anyone who may bring into the household others who may not have a right to remain. As the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has said, this could involve a considerable number of people.
Landlords do not keep a close eye on who is staying in each of their properties from week to week and month to month. The tenant may indeed have a visa, a job and all the necessary papers in order to remain in Britain, but if he brings over relatives to live with him, it must be for the immigration authorities to ensure that those relatives return home or obtain the right to remain. It cannot be right that the landlord can be penalised to the tune of initially £1,000, and then £3,000, for not being aware of this. Is he supposed to undertake an inspection of each of his properties each week or month? What kind of police state are this Government thinking of introducing?
An additional concern is that landlords are generally very anxious to remain on good terms with their tenants, and for good reasons. If tenants are threatened with a report from the Home Office or the results of such a report, they could well leave the property trashed, at considerable cost to the landlord and considerable inconvenience.
The Minister’s briefing says that if a tenant has no documents then they must, in order to rent a property, produce a police letter confirming that this has been reported. Does the Minister believe that this is realistic? What will be the cost to a landlord of undertaking or paying an agent to undertake the necessary checks, getting all these documents and police papers? I should be very interested to hear the Minister’s response.
The Minister’s briefing dismisses the exemption of students from the landlord provisions on the grounds that it would be complicated for landlords to keep records on only some of their tenants. I do not know. In my experience, most students live together in student accommodation of one sort or another, such as a student house. I hope the Minister will reconsider that point.
Then there is the experience of the former Minister Mark Harper, which has been referred to. The implications of landlords’ fears of inadvertently falling foul of the law and being penalised for an understandable error are considerable and will have huge implications for many communities. As Liberty argues:
“The net impact of the policy may well be to push those with irregular status further under the radar, increasing vulnerability and exploitation by creating another black market in private rented property”.
As the Home Affairs Committee put it, these new housing measures must not drive,
“more people into the twilight world of beds-in-sheds and overcrowded houses in multiple occupation”.
Does the Minister agree with those concerns—and if not, why not?
If the Government insist upon going ahead with these provisions, does the Minister accept that the requirements of the landlord must be minimal and very straightforward. The Minister’s briefing note says:
“Where a variety of documents are presented as evidence, it will be good practice to check that the names, photographs and dates of birth are consistent throughout”.
In fact, the wording behind that paragraph makes it clear not that that would be a good idea but that the landlord must do so. Can the Minister confirm that the landlord should not be penalised if his agent simply confirms that records have checked and are there, but that subsequently inconsistencies are found? Surely the landlord cannot be found responsible. If landlords are penalised for this sort of thing, landlords simply will not let a property to anyone whose documents are not or might not be straightforward. Landlords simply do not want to become immigration officers. Why should they? They have not gone into that profession in the first place.
Also, do the Government have any evidence at all that these measures would work? Finally, what will be the effect on ethnic minorities in general living in this country? Does the Minister have any concerns about the wider societal implications of these provisions?
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I support Amendments 50 and 51 standing in the name of my noble friend Lady Smith. I deeply dislike the provisions which would require landlords to subject all prospective tenants, including UK-born citizens, to immigration checks. I join other noble Lords in suggesting that they are likely to be unworkable and discriminatory, and I suspect that a careful pilot would find that out.
Failing that approach, I also support Amendments 52, 52A and 53 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, which come up in a later grouping. They seek to ensure that applicants for tier 4 visas who hold certificates of acceptance of studies, known as CAS, from recognised bodies will be exempt from landlord checks. I want to refer to them here because they reinforce my belief that a pilot is essential. They reflect the fact that, although the Government have tried to exempt halls of residence, it is difficult to define in law the variety of types of accommodation which international students may rent where the university has a role in putting them forward or securing the tenancy. Instead, the amendments exclude a whole class of prospective tenants from further immigration checks. That seems sensible because tier 4 applicants with certificates of acceptance of studies have already been through extensive checks. However, the amendments are important because, as I understand it, the Bill as currently drafted would make it impossible for a student to secure accommodation in advance of arriving in the UK. Can the Minister please confirm whether that is the case?
For a student with a young family or someone living away from home in a strange country for the first time, the ability to secure accommodation before arrival is hugely important. As I understand it, the amendment would mean that a student who had received a CAS would be able to present this, perhaps by e-mail, before coming to the UK and could be sure that the landlord would not have to carry out further checks once they arrived. That would be a very positive step.
I accept that the fact that this is limited to students would leave other groups vulnerable but the amendment highlights the difficulty that the largest group of visa applicants will face, and it will, I hope, strengthen the case for thorough piloting and a review of the residential tenancy provisions. I believe that unless this aspect of the Bill is substantially amended, it will lead to widespread discrimination. I hope that the Government will think again, and for this reason my preferred solution would be either to remove the clauses entirely or to subject these new requirements to a careful pilot, as suggested by my noble friend Lady Smith.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, support Amendments 50 and 51 in the name of my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon. In doing so, I want to reinforce many of the points that have already been made. It is important that is done and that the Government fully appreciate the amount of opposition to many of the proposals in the Bill, particularly in this section of the Bill. If I were being brutally honest, I would say that I believe that the whole of Chapter 1 of this part of the Bill ought to be deleted—that is, Clauses 15 to 32—because it is ill conceived and ill advised as an attempt to shift immigration control from the legal authorities rather dramatically and pretty fundamentally to the private sector. I believe that that is a societal shift because, as far as I am aware, never before has it been a legal requirement in Britain for private sector providers to demand that people prove their identity and legal status away from the border.
The effect on landlords of the burden of the bureaucracy associated with the proposals in the Bill was eloquently set out by my noble friend Lady Smith and others—and that is if landlords are even fully aware of the proposals. As has been said, they could face a civil penalty of, initially, £1,000. Landlords may well know of the need to vet potential tenants—that is fairly clear—but how will they understand what they are supposed to do about others who happen to move into the property after the tenancy has been granted? As the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has just said, how often are landlords supposed to check this? How many extra staff are they supposed to take on for those checks to be carried out effectively and to demonstrate that they have been carried out to the best of their ability? It is impossible to know realistically who is living in a property at any time unless it is inspected daily. It is most unfair that landlords should be expected to police those requirements.
As so many have said, this part of the Bill is simply not practical. I do not want to repeat what others have said, but I also have grave concerns about the effect on UK citizens who happen to have a name, skin colour or accent that is not quite what some British people would regard as the norm. In any case, a landlord may be able to say, “I don’t know whether this person is a UK citizen or not, but frankly from my point of view as a landlord it is simply not worth taking the risk, so I’ll take the safe option”. That is racial profiling, which is a nefarious practice in any circumstances, but it does not take a huge leap of imagination to imagine that that would be the preferable option for some landlords even if they were deeply uncomfortable with it. They may regard it as preferable to falling foul of the law and then being fined accordingly. That is a dreadful situation in which to place anybody.
The private rented sector in this country is not good enough in many respects already, and this Bill will simply make things worse. It will have the effect of restricting entry to that sector to a significant number of people who have no alternative. That could impact in turn on homelessness, which is already a problem and could become worse through the requirements of the Bill. There is also the question of costs. It is quite unrealistic from what I understand from previous government comments that it is anticipated that landlords will pass the costs on to tenants. Apart from the fact that many tenants will not be able to afford that, and may ultimately make some properties unaffordable to tenants, why should the tenants have to pay the costs? It is not their responsibility. I would suggest that it is not even the landlord’s responsibility, or it should not be. In effect, landlords are being press-ganged into doing the job of the legal authorities. If that is what the Government want to do, at the very least they should be prepared to bear the costs themselves, and not allow landlords to pass costs on to tenants or take on additional staff, which in itself is a significant cost.
Finally, I want to reinforce the point on the question of pilots. It is self-evident that a change as fundamental as this has to be the subject of a pilot—and a properly evaluated pilot at that—before it is taken forward if that is what must happen. As I said, ideally to my mind the whole proposal should be scrapped. That is clearly not going to happen, so I hope that a pilot in one area, as outlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, will be taken forward and that lessons learnt from that can then be used to ensure that some of the major problems stemming from the legislation can at least be eased.
Lord Hylton (CB)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that residential landlords very often, particularly in Greater London, go to some length to seek out companies and embassies as tenants for their properties. That in itself constitutes discrimination against the ordinary individual or family. I agreed with virtually every word that the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said, particularly when she referred to the unintended consequences that are likely to affect black and coloured citizens of this country as a knock-on effect of what is intended to deal only with migrants. This category will include citizen students who come from British ethnic minorities. The noble Baroness was quite right to go on to mention lodgers. I would much prefer that Clause 15 did not stand part. If it has to be in the Bill at least there should be a carefully designed and carefully evaluated pilot project.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Taylor of Holbeach) (Con)
My Lords, perhaps I may start by talking about the pilot. A number of noble Lords have expressed interest in a pilot and I can see its significance.
The Government have made public commitments in relation to the implementation of these provisions and have reiterated those commitments in correspondence with the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The Government’s intention is that the provisions relating to landlords and their agents will be subject to a phased implementation on a geographical basis. This will allow a proper evaluation of the scheme to ensure that it delivers its objectives without unintended consequences such as discrimination. Noble Lords are quite right to emphasise their concerns and I recognise that it is up to me to reassure noble Lords on that point. Through the courtesy of the noble Lord, Lord Best, I heard from Crisis directly when we had meetings with parties interested in this provision.
Discrimination is one factor and increased difficulties in the vulnerable accessing accommodation is another. We intend to work with bodies such as crisis in conducting the evaluation. It will not be an evaluation in which the Government examine their proposals on their own in isolation. The first phase and evaluation will also enable the Government to develop and deliver suitable support services for landlords and tenants, a point made by a number of noble Lords.
The Government have agreed that we will initiate the first phase from October 2014; that a formal evaluation will be produced; and that decisions on implementing the scheme more generally will be taken in the next Parliament on the basis of this proper evaluation. Implementation beyond the initial phase will be via a negative resolution order, enabling a debate to be triggered in both Houses of Parliament at that stage if there remain concerns following the initial phase.
These carefully constructed commencement provisions are already provided for in Clause 67. The proposed new clause goes no further. It would require Parliament to debate not only the wider rollout but also the establishment of the initial phase, and it would require all this to take place during the current Parliament rather than the more careful approach we have set out, which involves an initial phase and evaluation during this Parliament, with decisions to be taken on wider implementation under the next Parliament on the basis of a proper evaluation. We believe that this latter approach, which is provided for in the Bill, is the right one.
The commencement provisions in Clause 67 indicate the Government’s commitment to ensuring that, should it wish to do so, Parliament may scrutinise the implementation of the scheme following the initial rollout and before the subsequent stage commences. Any commencement order which brings the landlord provisions into operation in a subsequent area following the initial rollout will be subject to the negative resolution procedure. The House will be able to trigger a debate regarding the further rollout of the measures and any questions can then be addressed.
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for raising their concerns by way of these amendments, which are intended to be helpful and to improve the operation of the proposed landlord scheme. I recognise the particular concern that has been raised about the risk of unlawful discrimination. The Government are clear that race discrimination is unlawful, unacceptable and should be confronted.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
I am grateful to all those who have spoken in this debate. The Minister has indeed spoken at some length, and I would like to read Hansard and reflect on some of the comments that he has made.
I have a couple of observations. I think that the Minister said previously, in relation to Clauses 32 and 33 regarding the health surcharges, that, and I paraphrase, he did not want to make nurses and doctors into immigration agents, yet that is what the Government are doing to landlords in this clause. I must admit that he has not reassured me on the effectiveness of the measures in tackling the problems of illegal immigration, which is the process, but neither has he reassured me that it does not place disproportionate and unnecessary restraints and obligations on British citizens and overseas visitors who have a right to be here. I am not convinced that the balance is right or that this measure achieves its objectives.
I think that there is widespread support for a pilot. I will read what the Minister has said, and I know that he has tried to reassure noble Lords that his phased rollouts are the same as or better than a pilot, but they are still a commitment to proceed. The thing about a pilot is that it has to come back to your Lordships’ House to be re-evaluated and looked at. He says that decisions on a phased rollout will be taken in the next Parliament but in fact decisions will be taken in the Bill. As I understood it, he said that a decision would be taken in the next Parliament if there were concerns. I am not convinced that I am satisfied that that fully addresses the point that I was raising about a step-by-step process to see if this works and, if it does not, whether to proceed. The point made by noble Lords around the House today is that they are not convinced about the workability—which is a word—of these measures, and that they would want to be reassured before the measures went ahead. An individual pilot would do that. I shall look at exactly what he said and reflect on it.
The Minister has made clear the Government’s view on the issue of unlawful discrimination, but whether the measures proposed fully address it has yet to be proved. I think that the Government are right to reflect on the detail of the higher education further exemptions and look at bringing forward a better amendment.
I return to the issue that was not really addressed to my satisfaction: victims of domestic violence who may not have the appropriate documents. The Minister skated over that. We are talking about people who may have left their home in a hurry and do not have the available documents but are legal citizens and have the right to be here. I still think that they are placed in the most difficult positions if they are not able to rent.
My noble friend Lady Lister made a point about lodgers. She gave the example of the bedroom tax, where the Government have advised people to take lodgers. Those people will be subject to the provisions of this Bill and could find themselves facing a fine because they have not complied with it, even though they were told by the Government to take in lodgers and now much more onerous conditions have been put on that.
I ask the Minister to reflect on the conditions here. I notice that item 10f in list A of acceptable documents in the draft code of practice for landlords is simply a full stop. I am sure that that is not a document that the Government require. Obviously the documentation has some work to be done.
I am not entirely satisfied. I appreciate that the Minister has made an effort and taken a great deal of time to try to address all the points. I will read what he said in Hansard and reflect on the comments that he has made. For now, though, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hamwee
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 50B, 51B, 51C, 51D and 54ZA. This group of amendments takes us to the type of accommodation. Amendment 50A deals with a point that has been referred to already—that is, where there is no exclusive right of occupation.
The Minister has referred a number of times to the known unknowns, or the unknown knowns. I think there may be a lot of unknown unknowns in this, and my amendment asks whether the Government are confident that arrangements can work where what comes within the definition of a tenancy is, as we have heard, not what one normally understands to be a tenancy, such as lodgers and all sorts of licences which are not exclusive licences. A lot people live in premises on an informal basis, which is hardly the ideal home, but they may be the only residents, and that is what brings the accommodation into the Bill. Noble Lords have already referred to whether a landlord will go through the checks, whether discrimination will be fed and whether an underground black market will be created. Amendments 55B and 55D, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Best, address similar points.
The Minister told us not that long ago that there would be a range of penalties. He talked about £80 perhaps going up to £500 for multiple offences and £1,000 going up to £3,000. I am not sure whether I got his words quite correctly, but he referred to something like a proper mechanism for evaluating the level of the fine. I do not know whether he is in a position to say a little more about what the mechanisms for evaluating the level will be. It is clear that the Government have given this some thought. Indeed, it was referred to in the evidence session of the Public Bill Committee by the representative of one of the landlords organisations. She said,
“we do not agree with the proposed disparity in penalties””.—[Official Report, Commons, Immigration Bill Committee 29/10/13; col. 56.]
That is not my point. I just want to get some clarity as soon as we can on this.
Amendment 50B would preclude the Secretary of State reducing the types of excluded—which I find quite a difficult term in this context—premises which do not come within the scheme.
Amendments 51B, 51C and 51D relate to the way in which refuges are defined in Schedule 3. I am delighted that refuges are now within the schedule. My amendments would be refinements. The schedule does not at the moment take account of the fact that costs may be provided by a voluntary organisation or charity. The term is simply “operated”. The Bill states,
“its costs of operation are provided wholly or in part by a government department or agency, or by a local authority … it is managed by a voluntary organisation”.
There are a variety of models. A hostel may be owned by a voluntary organisation and the provisions seem to stand being reread and made as extensive as they are in practice.
Amendment 51D would extend the group of those who might benefit from the provision from being simply those who have been subject to an incident or pattern of incidents of the behaviour spelt out to those who are threatened with or avoiding such behaviour or who might be subject to it. It is looking ahead to prevention, as it were.
I accept that it would be unusual for somebody to flee without actually having been subject to some of the behaviour that is listed here, but I want to ensure that we are as inclusive as possible. No one seeks a place in a refuge. Nor, indeed, would a refuge, the places in which are in short supply, provide a place lightly. We should not add to the difficulties of someone seeking refuge, nor to those of the refuge operator. I should perhaps declare an interest as having been chair of Refuge for some years. I would be concerned if the operators of refuges had to interrogate their prospective clients in the way that this clause might suggest.
Finally, Amendment 54ZA would add holiday and short-term business lettings to the excluded premises. I am probing here because of the amount of administration required; the Minister may disagree with that, given his earlier comments. However, I think that most noble Lords see the Bill as requiring a lot of administration. I hesitated before tabling this amendment, because I would not like to think that it might mean taking the use of accommodation as a home out of the ordinary private rented sector. I mention that in order to try to avoid the criticism, but also to probe the point that holiday and short-term business lettings may be excluded by Clause 15(4), which refers to,
“their only or main residence”.
Perhaps the Minister can help me on that one. I beg to move.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
My Lords, I shall jump in quickly on this. I hope we can move this debate on because I think I can satisfy my noble friend Lady Hamwee on the points that she has raised.
Amendments 50A and 50B would exclude temporary living arrangements from the scheme and prevent the Secretary of State from removing living arrangements from the excluded list once added. In relation to the first point, I draw attention to Clause 15(4), which sets out that the restriction on letting will apply only to agreements which allow a person to occupy the premises as their only or main residence. Further, Clause 27 provides for the Secretary of State to set out in a code of practice the factors she considers when determining whether someone is occupying premises on this basis, and provide guidance relating to holiday lettings or lettings connected with business travel in particular. In relation to Amendment 54ZA, the Government have no intention of requiring a status check where these circumstances pertain.
Further, while other temporary living arrangements such as hostels and refuges are expressly excluded from the scheme by Schedule 3, excluding other instances of multiple occupations will simply undermine the scheme. I am looking carefully at Amendment 50B. This would restrict the Secretary of State’s power to amend the provisions in Schedule 3 in the future, so that she could not remove a description from the list. It may assist my noble friend if I clarify that the intention of this provision is not to allow the Secretary of State to reduce the scope of the exemptions from the scheme in the future: exemptions have been provided for arrangements which ensure important services can be provided to the vulnerable, and where the restriction would impose a double or disproportionate regulatory burden.
Careful consideration has been given to the drafting of the exclusions, and consultation has taken place with stakeholders. However, once the scheme is in operation the exclusions may need to be amended to ensure that they are and remain appropriately targeted. I am afraid that our experience is that circumstances may change over time and that many illegal immigrants will seek to exploit what they see as loopholes in the law. It is surely appropriate, particularly as the initial phase of rollout is to be evaluated, to allow the Secretary of State to address abuse where it may arise, sometimes of course through displacement.
On Amendments 51B and 51C, accommodation provided by charities or voluntary organisations in the form of refuges and hostels is already excluded. Similarly, Amendment 51D will achieve no more than the draft paragraph already provides in relation to excluding refuge accommodation provided to those suffering from or threatened with abusive behaviour. The Government have taken a great deal of care here and have discussed this paragraph in some depth with two leading organisations that provide such accommodation.
I hope that in light of those points I have been able to satisfy my noble friend. If not, I hope that she will come back to me after Committee so that we have the chance to talk about it. I hope that she will withdraw her amendments.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, on Amendment 50B, if the objective is to allow refinement rather than wholesale change, I hope that we may look at refining the provision so that that is quite clear in the Bill. Yes, I would welcome a further word on Amendments 51B and 51C. On Amendment 50A, sadly, some lodgers and some sofa surfers are using friends’ or—I do not know what the term is—lodging-providers’ premises as their only or main residence. That is an outcome of homelessness. Therefore I hear what the noble Lord says about the intention, but I am not sure that it quite meets the point that I am making. However, obviously at this time I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley)
I must tell your Lordships that if Amendment 52 is agreed I cannot call Amendments 52A to 54ZZA for reasons of pre-emption.
Amendment 52
Lord Clement-Jones
(a) landlord, as defined in subsection (3) of section 15; and(b) an applicant for a Tier 4 visa holding a Certificate of Acceptance of Studies issued by a body listed in the schedule to the Education (Recognised Bodies) (England) Order 2013 (S.I. 2013/2992)”
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, in moving Amendment 52 I will speak also to Amendments 52A, 53 and 54. At this time of day I feel as though I am trying to hit a moving target to some degree with these amendments. I heard what the Minister had to say about the concessions he has given as regards rejigging the exemption for residential property occupied by students, where it is owned, managed or arranged directly by a higher education institution so that there will be no need for further checks. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, I, too, look forward to reading Hansard tomorrow to clarify what the Minister has given by way of an assurance on that. However, I am pretty sure that these amendments—subject to reading Hansard—go rather wider than the concessions that the Minister has given. They derive from the concerns that I, my noble friend Lady Hamwee and many noble Lords expressed at Second Reading and continue to do so about the requirement for landlords to check a prospective overseas student’s immigration status prior to renting accommodation to them.
Universities UK and many student bodies have expressed their concerns extremely cogently. Universities UK says that, while acknowledging that some student accommodation will be exempt, it is deeply concerned, as are we, that these measures will discourage landlords from letting accommodation to international students and staff or those who appear to be from outside the UK, particularly at peak times when they are under pressure to make decisions quickly. Secondly, Universities UK says that the measures may leave international students and staff unable to secure accommodation before their arrival in the UK. Given that many international students are young and living away from home for the first time, this could cause considerable anxiety, and could add to the perception that the UK is unwelcoming. The noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, made that point in the previous debate. I note the Minister’s assurance in his subsequent correspondence that this can be done on a conditional basis, but this will not be attractive to landlords who will have to take the risk that the relevant visa or residence permit will eventually be produced. The lack of certainty is the next issue posed by Universities UK, which says that the lack of certainty provided by a residential tenancy may also prove a significant barrier to non-EU staff looking to move to the UK to work in our universities. This uncertainty could be a particular disincentive to those with children. Finally, Universities UK says that exemptions for halls of residence are welcome, but it is not clear that they will cover the wide variety of arrangements between universities and privately owned student accommodation. Of course, that is the objection that I believe my noble friend has addressed in his last statement. We will examine that carefully. That is only one of the four arguments that Universities UK puts that the Minister has addressed.
Amendments 52 and 52A provide alternative ways in which to ensure that prospective tenants holding tier 4 visas who could demonstrate that they hold a certificate of acceptance of studies from a university will be exempt from further checks of their immigration status. Amendments 53 and 54 would broaden the scope of the exemption for halls of residence, which will not be subject to the residential tenancy measures.
International students already face difficulties in securing accommodation and are often made to pay large advance payments of rent. Bookings of accommodation for students often have to be made well in advance at a time when overseas students cannot prove their immigration status. Landlords will be discouraged from letting accommodation to international students and staff and they will be relegated to the back of the queue in the search for accommodation. How can causing this kind of barrier and concern to young people coming here for the first time be the right way to welcome them? How will this lack of certainty encourage overseas academic staff to come and work in our universities?
The fear of the student bodies that have briefed Members of this House is that this will lead to more discrimination against black and ethnic minority students when looking for housing. Liberty believes so too, citing the National Landlords Association and the UK Association of Letting Agents, which both expressed concerns to the Public Bill Committee that the Bill could impact on ethnic minorities. Indeed, as Liberty also says, the very inclusion of Clause 28, which requires the Home Secretary to produce a code of practice on how landlords should avoid contravening the Equality Act 2010, is tacit acceptance that the policy will encourage unlawful discrimination.
Why are additional provisions required for students? International students are already subject to extensive checks prior to arrival in the UK and require a certificate of acceptance of studies from a higher education institution. Surely being vouched for by their university when the accommodation is occupied should be enough. After all, the risk of losing highly trusted sponsor status, as the NUS has said, means that higher education institutions are now scrupulous in their monitoring of overseas students. The Residential Landlords Association and the British Property Federation have pointed out the problems with the latter, in particular stating that the proposals constitute a disproportionate burden on the landlord and tenant compared to their likely outcome for immigration control. In the NUS survey this month, 40% of international students believe that these landlord checks will negatively impact on their decision to study in the UK—and more in the case of PhD students concerned about spouse and children.
I believe that overseas students should be specifically exempt from these provisions. I beg to move.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
My Lords, I think that most of us have spent all day trying to catch up and find out where we are. The day started off with a considerable readjustment of groupings, which has meant that sometimes matters which were going to be discussed at one point were discussed at another. I apologise if that has sometimes meant that our debates may have appeared a little disjointed.
I am sure that, in moving this amendment, my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones had not anticipated that I would be in a position to make an announcement. Although he says that it does not meet all the points that Universities UK has suggested, I think that it goes a very long way towards it. At bottom, it succeeds in making it plain that, where the university itself is responsible for arranging a student’s accommodation, be that a student coming to this country for the first time and making accommodation arrangements ahead of time, or a student already at the university who needs accommodation, they will be excluded from any further checks. I believe that this is a considerable step forward. I am pleased that I have had an opportunity to make the point again because throughout these debates we have said that we welcome the brightest and the best students. There is no limit on numbers and we are very pleased to see overseas students coming to study at our higher education institutions.
Lawful students should not be deterred by the provisions in the Bill. We need to make sure that those do not get in the way of them coming to this country. They are not designed adversely to affect students during their stay here. I understand the reasoning behind the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lady Hamwee and spoken to by my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones. We do not want to have to check the immigration status of any person more than once. Educational institutions already conduct checks of students as part of their obligations as sponsors of non-EEA migrants. They have taken a position of responsibility in respect of their students which we would like to reinforce by the amendments that we will bring forward on Report to extend their responsibilities in this regard. If accommodation is controlled by a registered educational institution, we agree that the tenancy should be exempt from any further checking requirement. The Government intend to bring forward an amendment on Report to broaden this exemption to cover a wider range of circumstances where student accommodation is arranged by the university or college.
I know that noble Lords are concerned about other matters and want to talk about other impacts of the Bill on students in general. When we had the previous debate on the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, I indicated that I thought it would be good to have a further discussion with him. I want to make sure that we get these matters right, and it is most important that by Report we will have made every effort to do so as a result of contributions made by noble Lords. I hope that my noble friend will be prepared to withdraw his amendment.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, perhaps I may raise one issue for the Minister to consider before Report. Before I do so, I should say that I very much welcome the Government revisiting this issue but, as my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones said, it does not sound as if it is going to go as far as we would like.
One of the areas in which we would go further is on whether the premises are within the control of the university or college. We are looking at this matter from the student’s point of view. My noble friend Lady Manzoor, who will jump because I have mentioned her, said to me the other day that she thinks that a landlord needs to see evidence that the tenant is a student for council tax purposes. If that were so, it would go a long way towards dealing with any potential abuse. Can I leave that with the Minister to consider? Perhaps a bit of lateral thinking there might help to reassure the Government as regards the rather more extensive amendments that we are proposing.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
It may be late but it is not too late to hear an idea that is worth considering, and I am grateful for that suggestion.
Lord Clement-Jones
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply and I can understand that it must be slightly frustrating to have to keep re-replying and repeating assurances, but that is the way in which the groupings have worked today.
I appreciate the concession that the Government have made and no doubt will be bringing back but we will obviously need to see the small print. My noble friend Lady Hamwee is correct: I suspect that the concession will not go as far as we would want because not all accommodation for overseas students is arranged, owned or managed by universities. However, we will no doubt take advice from UUK as to whether the concession really does move us a long way forward or whether a substantial amount of accommodation for overseas students would not be covered by it.
I took heart from the Minister’s statement that the Government did not want a situation whereby the immigration status of students, having been checked by the educational institutions, was then checked by landlords. If that is the general principle, it sounds as if we are making real progress in this part of the Bill. I look forward to seeing the text of the amendment that the Minister brings forward on Report. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.